research-article

Phase change memory in enterprise storage systems: silver bullet or snake oil?

Authors:

Sangeetha Seshadri,

Clement L. Dickey,

Lawrence ChiuAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, Volume 48, Issue 1

Pages 82 - 89

https://doi.org/10.1145/2626401.2626418

Published: 15 May 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Storage devices based on Phase Change Memory (PCM) devices are beginning to generate considerable attention in both industry and academic communities. But whether the technology in its current state will be a commercially and technically viable alternative to entrenched technologies such as flash-based SSDs still remains unanswered. To address this it is important to consider PCM SSD devices not just from a device standpoint, but also from a holistic perspective.

This paper presents the results of our performance measurement study of a recent all-PCM SSD prototype. The average latency for 4 KB random read is 6.7 ?s, which is about 16x faster than a comparable eMLC flash SSD. The distribution of I/O response times is also much narrower than the flash SSD for both reads and writes. Based on real-world workload traces, we model a hypothetical storage device which consists of flash, HDD, and PCM to identify the combinations of device types that offer the best performance within cost constraints. Our results show that - even at current price points - PCM storage devices show promise as a new component in multi-tiered enterprise storage systems.

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Cited By

Ding CYao TJiang HCui QTang LZhang YWan JTan Z(2022)TriangleKV: Reducing Write Stalls and Write Amplification in LSM-Tree Based KV Stores With Triangle Container in NVMIEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems10.1109/TPDS.2022.318826833:12(4339-4352)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TPDS.2022.3188268
Yao TZhang YWan JCui QTang LJiang HXie CHe XGavrilovska AZadok E(2020)MatrixKVProceedings of the 2020 USENIX Conference on Usenix Annual Technical Conference10.5555/3489146.3489148(17-31)Online publication date: 15-Jul-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3489146.3489148
Kaiyrakhmet OLee SNam BNoh SChoi YMerchant AWeatherspoon H(2019)SLM-DBProceedings of the 17th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies10.5555/3323298.3323317(191-204)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3323298.3323317
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Index Terms

Phase change memory in enterprise storage systems: silver bullet or snake oil?
1. Information systems
  1. Information storage systems
    1. Storage management
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Operating systems
        File systems management
        Memory management

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review

ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review Volume 48, Issue 1

January 2014

118 pages

ISSN:0163-5980

DOI:10.1145/2626401

Editors:
Jeanna Neefe Matthews
Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY
,
Thomas Bressoud
Denison University, Granville, OH

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2014 Authors.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 15 May 2014

Published in SIGOPS Volume 48, Issue 1

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Cited By

Ding CYao TJiang HCui QTang LZhang YWan JTan Z(2022)TriangleKV: Reducing Write Stalls and Write Amplification in LSM-Tree Based KV Stores With Triangle Container in NVMIEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems10.1109/TPDS.2022.318826833:12(4339-4352)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TPDS.2022.3188268
Yao TZhang YWan JCui QTang LJiang HXie CHe XGavrilovska AZadok E(2020)MatrixKVProceedings of the 2020 USENIX Conference on Usenix Annual Technical Conference10.5555/3489146.3489148(17-31)Online publication date: 15-Jul-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3489146.3489148
Kaiyrakhmet OLee SNam BNoh SChoi YMerchant AWeatherspoon H(2019)SLM-DBProceedings of the 17th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies10.5555/3323298.3323317(191-204)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3323298.3323317
Kim JPark JKo D(2018)Effect of selenium doping on the crystallization behaviors of GeSb for phase-change memory applicationsThin Solid Films10.1016/j.tsf.2018.03.032653(173-178)Online publication date: May-2018
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2018.03.032
Park JKim SKim JKo DWu ZAhn DAhn DLee JKang SChoi S(2016)Enhancement of a cyclic endurance of phase change memory by application of a high-density C15(Ge21Sb36Te43) filmAIP Advances10.1063/1.49421106:2Online publication date: 11-Feb-2016
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4942110
Jantz MRobinson FKulkarni PDoshi K(2015)Cross-layer memory management for managed language applicationsACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2858965.281432250:10(488-504)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2858965.2814322
Jantz MRobinson FKulkarni PDoshi KAldrich JEugster P(2015)Cross-layer memory management for managed language applicationsProceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications10.1145/2814270.2814322(488-504)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2814270.2814322
Park JKim SKim JWu ZCho SAhn DAhn DLee JNam SKo D(2015)Reduction of RESET current in phase change memory devices by carbon doping in GeSbTe filmsJournal of Applied Physics10.1063/1.4914909117:11(115703)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2015
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4914909

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