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Exploiting flash memory characteristics to improve performance of RAIS storage systems

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Abstract

Redundant array of independent SSDs (RAIS) is generally based on the traditional RAID design and implementation. The random small write problem is a serious challenge of RAIS. Random small writes in parity-based RAIS systems generate significantly more pre-reads and writes which can degrade RAIS performance and shorten SSD lifetime. In order to overcome the well-known write-penalty problem in the parity-based RAID5 storage systems, several logging techniques such as Parity Logging and Data Logging have been put forward. However, these techniques are originally based on mechanical characteristics of the HDDs, which ignore the properties of the flash memory.

In this article, we firstly propose RAISL, a flash-aware logging method that improves the small write performance of RAIS storage systems. RAISL writes new data instead of new data and pre-read data to the log SSD by making full use of the invalid pages on the SSD of RAIS. RAISL does not need to perform the pre-read operations so that the original characteristics of workloads are kept. Secondly, we propose AGCRL on the basis of RAISL to further boost performance. AGCRL combines RAISL with access characteristic to guide read and write cost regulation to improve the performance of RAIS storage systems. Our experiments demonstrate that the RAISL significantly improves write performance and AGCRL improves both of write performance and read performance. AGCRL on average outperforms RAIS5 and RAISL by 39.15% and 16.59% respectively.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program (863 Program) (2015AA016701, 2015AA015301); NSFC (61772222, U1705261, 61472153, 61402189, 61303046); State Key Laboratory of Computer Architecture (CARCH201505); Wuhan Applied Basic Research Project (2015010101010004); This work was also supported by Key Laboratory of Information Storage System, Ministry of Education, China. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, School of Computer, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Linjun Mei, Dan Feng, Lingfang Zeng, Jianxi Chen & Jingning Liu

Authors
  1. Linjun Mei
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  2. Dan Feng
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  3. Lingfang Zeng
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  4. Jianxi Chen
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  5. Jingning Liu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dan Feng.

Additional information

Linjun Mei received his BE degrees in Computer Science and Technology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 2007. He is currently pursuing the PhD degree in the School of Compute from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. His current research interests include hybrid storage systems, redundant array of independent disks, and SSD-based RAID.

Dan Feng received her BE, ME and PhD degrees in Computer Science and Technology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 1991, 1994 and 1997 respectively. She is a Professor and Vice Dean of the School of Computer, China. Her research interests include computer architecture, massive storage systems and parallel file systems. She has over 100 publications in journals and international conferences, including FAST, ICDCS, HPDC, SC, ICS and ICPP. Dr. Feng is a member of IEEE and a member of ACM.

Lingfang Zeng received his BE in Applied Computer from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China in 2000, MS in Applied Computer from China University of Geoscience, China in 2003 and PhD in Computer Architecture, from HUST in 2006. He was Research Fellow for four years in Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, during 2007–2008 and 2010–2013. He is currently with Wuhan National Lab for Optoelectronics, and School of Computer, HUST, as an associate professor. He publishes more than 40 papers in major journals and conferences, including ACM Transactions on Storage, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, FAST, SC, MSST, and CLUSTER, and serves for multiple international journals and conferences. He is a member of IEEE.

Jianxi Chen received his BE degrees in Nanjing University, China in 1999, MS in Computer Architecture from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 2002 and PhD in Computer Architecture, from HUST in 2006. He is currently with Wuhan National Lab for Optoelectronics, and School of Computer, as an Associate Professor. He publishes more than 20 papers in major journals and conferences. He is a member of CCF and IEEE.

Jingning Liu received her BE degrees in Department of Computer Peripheral Equipment from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 1982. She is currently with Wuhan National Lab for Optoelectronics, and School of Computer, as a professor. She publishes more than 30 papers in major journals and conferences.

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Mei, L., Feng, D., Zeng, L. et al. Exploiting flash memory characteristics to improve performance of RAIS storage systems. Front. Comput. Sci. 13, 913–928 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-018-7009-0

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