IMPROVING DISK I/O PERFORMANCE
We are performing work in this area to increase the performance of disk I/O systems in both desktop and server systems. For desktop systems the goal is to use only software techniques to increase performance without increasing cost. For server technology we are investigating both hardware and software strategies for enhancing performance.CURRENT TOPICS
- Storage hierarchy studies. We are in the process of constructing a test system for evaluating the incorporation of various types of storage devices, such as disk and flash, into the memory hierarchy.
PAST TOPICS
- Disk rearrangement studies. For some time, it has been known that techniques such as defragmentation can improve performance. Other techniques are discussed here.
- Construct a mechanism to collect disk traces in the Netware environment. Several tools have already been constructed and are free to interested parties.
- Collect traces from test servers, academic laboratory servers, and administrative servers. All collected traces are available.
- Characterize the I/O requirements of various workloads.
- Identify disk data reorganization techniques that enhance performance.
- Perform studies to determine if disk prefetching is beneficial
- If possible implement these techniques on a real system.
TECHNICAL REPORTS AND THESES
- On-Disk Sequence Cache (ODSC): Using Excess Capacity to Increase Performance. (PDF 65.7 K)
- A Stochastic Disk I/O Simulation Technique (PostScript, 1200K)
© 2006, Performance Evaluation Laboratory, Brigham Young University. All rights reserved. Reproduction of all or part of this work is permitted for educational or research use provided that this copyright notice is included in any copy. Send comments to webmaster@pel.cs.byu.edu.