Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology increases the areal density of hard disk drives. Among the three types of SMR drives on the market today, Host Aware SMR (HA-SMR) drives look the most promising. In this paper, we carry out evaluation to understand the performance of HA-SMR drives with the objective of building large-scale storage systems using this type of drive. We focus on evaluating the special features of HA-SMR drives, such as the open zone issue and media cache cleaning efficiency. Based on our observations we propose a novel host-controlled indirection buffer to enhance the drive’s I/O performance. Finally, we present a case study of the open zone issue to show the potential of this host-controlled indirection buffer for HA-SMR drives.
Monday June 20, 2016 12:05pm - 12:30pm MDT
Denver Marriott City Center1701 California Street, Denver, CO 80202
