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Software-Defined Flash:
Tradeoffs of FTL, Open-Channel, and Cooperative Flash Management

 

On Wednesday, September 21, at the SNIA Storage Developer Conference in Santa Clara, Ca., Radian Memory Systems will be providing a presentation on Software-Defined Flash, contrasting different FTL approaches with Open-Channel and Cooperative Flash Management.

Abstract

Systems can now utilize Software-Defined Flash to employ different levels of abstraction for processes such as garbage collection, wear leveling and error handling. SSDs have traditionally provided a complete abstraction of these processes in the FTL at the device level, while Software-Defined Flash exposes these processes with variable degrees of control and abstraction.

This type of system-driven approach enables host file systems, block virtualization layers, and key value stores to control the granularity of segment stripe sizes, timing of garbage collection processes, hot/cold separation, and physical data layout. This synchronization of processes and more efficient abstractions extract superior latency, determinism (QoS), and bandwidth from the Flash storage while reducing write amplification (wear out) and over provisioning. But obtaining these efficiencies has tradeoffs with respect to integration efforts, host resource consumption and scalability. The right Software-Defined Flash approach can range from an application-specific host FTL, to No-FTL, or hybrid implementation that distributes functionality between the host and the device.

Learning Objectives

  • Contrasting Software-Defined Flash to traditional FTL implementations
  • Examining flexible segment size configuration and deterministic versus asynchronous process control
  • Contrasting L2P address translation implementations between host FTL and No-FTL approaches
  • Full stack architectural overviews of Open-Channel and Cooperative Flash Management

The talk will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara at 5:00 p.m.

Hyatt Regency Hotel
5101 Great America Parkway
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 200-1234
www.santaclara.hyatt.com

If you can’t attend in person please contact info@radianmemory.com to be provided a copy of the presentation.

Radian Memory Systems, Inc.
www.radianmemory.com
info@radianmemory.com
Tel 818 222 4080
Fax 818 222 4081