Heuristic Cleaning Algorithms in Log-Structured File Systems

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Authors: 

Trevor Blackwell, Jeffrey Harris, Margo Seltzer, Harvard University

Abstract: 

Research results show that while Log-Structured File Systems (LFS) offer the potential for dramatically improved file system performance, the cleaner can seriously degrade performance, by as much as 40% in transaction processing workloads [9]. Our goal is to examine trace data from live file systems and use those to derive simple heuristics that will permit the cleaner to run without interfering with normal file access. Our results show that trivial heuristics perform very well, allowing 97% of all cleaning on the most heavily loaded system we studied to be done in the background.

BibTeX
@inproceedings {260479,
author = {Trevor Blackwell and Jeffrey Harris and Margo Seltzer},
title = {Heuristic Cleaning Algorithms in {Log-Structured} File Systems},
booktitle = {USENIX 1995 Technical Conference (USENIX 1995 Technical Conference)},
year = {1995},
address = {New Orleans, LA},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenix-1995-technical-conference/heuristic-cleaning-algorithms-log-structured-file},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jan
}
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Links

Paper: 
http://usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/neworl/full_papers/blackwell.ps