Large Block CLOCK (LB-CLOCK): A write caching algorithm for solid state disks

Solid State Disks (SSDs) using NAND flash memory are increasingly being adopted in the high-end servers of data-centers to improve performance of the I/O-intensive applications. Compared to the traditional enterprise class hard disks, SSDs provide faster read performance, lower cooling cost, and higher power efficiency. However, write performance of a flash based SSD can be up to an order of magnitude slower than its read performance. Furthermore, frequent write operations degrade the lifetime of flash memory. A nonvolatile cache can greatly help to solve these problems. Although a RAM cache is relative high in cost, it has successfully eliminated the performance gap between fast CPU and slow magnetic disk. Similarly, a nonvolatile cache in an SSD can alleviate the disparity between the flash memory's read and write performance. A small write cache that reduces the number of flash block erase operations, can lead to substantial performance gain for write-intensive applications and can extend the overall lifetime of flash based SSDs. This paper presents a novel write caching algorithm, the Large Block CLOCK (LB-CLOCK) algorithm, which considers 'recency' and 'block space utilization' metrics to make cache management decisions. LB-CLOCK dynamically varies the priority between these two metrics to adapt to changes in workload characteristics. Our simulation based experimental results show that LB-CLOCK outperforms the best known existing flash caching algorithms for a wide range of workloads.