Storage Class Memory Technology And Use

David Pease, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose

Stevenson Hall 1300
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

The dream of replacing the disk drive, with solid-state, nonvolatile random access memory is finally becoming a reality. There are several technologies under active research and development, such as advanced forms of FLASH, Phase Change Memory, Magnetic RAM and others. They are collectively called Storage Class Memory (SCM). The advent of this technology will likely have a significant impact on the design of both future storage and memory systems. The first part of this talk will give an overview of the SCM device technologies being developed and how they will impact the design of storage controllers and storage systems. The device overview will emphasize technology paths to very high bit densities, which will enable low cost storage devices, ultimately becoming cost competitive with enterprise disks. In addition, SCM is fast enough to be used as (non-volatile) main memory, complementing DRAM. Eventually, the availability of such storage will both enable and demand profound changes in file system architecture and implementation. This talk also explores some ways in which file systems could adapt to this new storage environment.