R&D: Universal SMR-Aware Cache Framework with Deep Optimization for DM-SMR and HM-SMR Disks

ACM Transactions on Storage Volume 19 Issue 3 has published an article written by Diansen Sun, Ruixiong Tan, and Yunpeng Chai, Renmin University of China.

Abstract: “To satisfy the enormous storage capacities required for big data, data centers have been adopting high-density shingled magnetic recording (SMR) disks. However, the weak fine-grained random write performance of SMR disks caused by their inherent write amplification and unbalanced read–write performance poses a severe challenge. Many studies have proposed solid-state drive (SSD) cache systems to address this issue. However, existing cache algorithms, such as the least recently used (LRU) algorithm, which is used to optimize cache popularity, and the MOST algorithm, which is used to optimize the write amplification factor, cannot exploit the full performance of the proposed cache systems because of their inappropriate optimization objectives. This article proposes a new SMR-aware cache framework called SAC+ to improve SMR-based hybrid storage. SAC+ integrates the two dominant types of SMR drives—namely, drive-managed and host-managed SMR drives—and provides a universal framework implementation. In addition, SAC+ integrally combines the drive characteristics to optimize I/O performance. The results of evaluations conducted using real-world traces indicate that SAC+ reduces the I/O time by 36–93% compared with state-of-the-art algorithms.“