High Performance File System Design (Thesis)

Abstract:

File systems and I/O subsystems should be $smart$; they can analyze how
they are being used and tune themselves dynamically to improve their
performance. File systems should select caching and disk placement
strategies on a per-file basis, and they should use system-wide disk
reorganization strategies. For example, systems should be able to
reorganize the data on disk automatically during idle periods so that
system performance is improved during future periods of peak load.
This dissertation presents the design and analysis of iPcress, a
prototype of a next-generation file system. iPcress is a smart,
high-performance, reliable file system. It uses statistical
information collected on a per-file basis to tune itself. iPcress has
a framework in which various optimizations can be performed by the file
system automatically. It is extensible; other optimization techniques
can be incorporated easily, so that the system may evolve. In
addition, iPcress can incorporate a variety of file access and
placement techniques and choose the best combination of techniques for
each file dynamically. A sample smart optimization -- clustering
active disk data in the center of the disk -- is described; it
increases disk throughput by 30%.