Special Topics in Computer Engineering

Modern flash-based solid state disk (SSDs) can be plagued by enormous performance variations depending on whether the underlying architectural complexities and flash management overheads can be hidden or not. Designing a smart flash controller and storage system is key hiding these architectural complexities and reducing the internal firmware overheads. In this course, we first understand the core components of SSD architecture and key concepts behind flash firmware. It then presents a set of novel storage optimizations including various concurrency methods, I/O scheduling algorithms, and garbage collection avoidance mechanisms. Lastly, the lectures will cover simple basic file system and storage stack