FFS: Fast File System

Please read Fast File System (PDF), and answer following questions:

• What is the problem this paper tried to solve? (Hint: please state the problem using data)
• What is the root cause of the problem? In one sentence.
• For each optimization, how does the author get the idea? (Hint: just imagine you’re the author. Given the problem, what experiment would you do to get more info?)
• For each optimization, does it always work? In which case it cannot work?
• Do you have some better ideas to implement a faster FS?

Some guidance of paper reading:

• First time: please scan the entire paper for the first time. Read the first sentence of each paragraph and try to understand the logic of the whole article.
• Second time: read the paper again carefully. For each optimization, please use one sentence as summary. If you’re not familiar with the tech, just mark and skip it.
  • Why the old FS is not good enough?
  • Pay attention to “File System Parameterization”, you may need to read it many times.
  • For evaluation part, please ask yourself why the author test in this way, and what else do you think should be measured.
• Third time: go back and find all the mark places, using Google to find more about the them, try to understand in their context.
• Fourth time: selectively read parts of the paper with the questions in mind, and answer them.
• Final: read the description of FFS in Remzi's "three easy pieces" (pdf), for better understanding.

The deadline is Sep 30 23:59.

Please write your answer into a text file and upload it to ftp://public.sjtu.edu.cn/upload/reading2/[your-student-id].txt, like 517021910000.txt

• Ftp username: followmoon
• Ftp password: public