MEMS-based Storage Devices and Standard Disk Interfaces: A Square Peg in a Round Hole?

MEMS-based storage devices (MEMStores) are significantly different from both disk drives and semiconductor memories. The differences motivate the question of whether they need new abstractions to be utilized by systems, or if existing abstractions will be sufficient. This paper addresses this question by examining the fundamental reasons that the abstraction works for existing devices, and by showing that these reasons also hold for MEMStores. This result is shown to hold through several case studies of proposed roles MEMStores may take in future systems and potential policies that may be used to tailor systems' access to MEMStores. With one noted exception, today's storage interfaces and abstractions are as suitable for MEMStores as for disks.