Parallelism-aware request scheduling for MEMS-based storage devices

Abstract

MEMS-based storage is being developed as a new storage media. Due to its attractive features such as high-bandwidth, low-power consumption, and low cost, MEMS storage is anticipated to be used for a wide range of applications. However, MEMS storage has vastly different physical characteristics compared to a traditional disk. First, MEMS storage has thousands of heads that can be activated simultaneously. Second, the media of MEMS storage is a square structure which is different from the platter structure of disks. This paper presents a new request scheduling algorithm for MEMS storage that makes use of the aforementioned characteristics. This new algorithm considers the parallelism of MEMS storage as well as the seek time on the two dimensional square structure. We then extend this algorithm to consider the aging factor so that starvation resistance is improved. Simulation studies show that the proposed algorithms improve the performance of MEMS storage by up to 39.2% in terms of the average response time and 62.4% in terms of starvation resistance compared to the widely acknowledged SPTF (Shortest Positioning Time First) algorithm. © 2006 IEEE.