Margo Ilene Seltzer

EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-93-765
June 1993

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1993/CSD-93-765.pdf

This thesis considers two related issues: the impact of disk layout on file system throughput and the integration of transaction support in file systems.

Historic file system designs have optimized for reading, as read throughput was the I/O performance bottleneck. Since increasing main-memory cache sizes effectively reduce disk read traffic, disk write performance has become the I/O performance bottleneck. This thesis presents both simulation and implementation analysis of the performance of read-optimized and write-optimized file systems.

An example of a file system with a disk layout optimized for writing is a log-structured file system, where writes are bundled and written sequentially. Empirical evidence in [ROSE90], [ROSE91], and [ROSE92] indicates that a log-structured file system provides superior write performance and equivalent read performance to traditional file systems. This thesis analyzes and evaluates the log-structured file system presented in [ROSE91], isolating some of the critical issues in its design. Additionally, a modified design addressing these issues is presented and evaluated.

Log-structured file systems also offer the potential for superior integration of transaction processing into the system. Because log-structured file systems use logging techniques to store files, incorporating transaction mechanisms into the file system is a natural extension. This thesis presents the design, implementation, and analysis of both user-level transaction management on read and write optimized file systems and embedded transaction management in a write optimized file system.

This thesis shows that both log-structured file systems and simple, read-optimized file systems can attain nearly 100% of the disk bandwidth when I/Os are large or sequential. The improved write performance of LFS discussed in [ROSE92] is only attainable when garbage collection overhead is small, and in nearly all of the workloads examined, performance of LFS is comparable to that of a read-optimized file system. On transaction processsing workloads where a steady stream of small, random I/Os are issued, garbage collection reduces LFS throughput by 35% to 40%.

Advisor: Michael R. Stonebraker

BibTeX citation:

@phdthesis{Seltzer:CSD-93-765,
    Author = {Seltzer, Margo Ilene},
    Title = {File System Performance and Transaction Support},
    School = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
    Year = {1993},
    Month = {Jun},
    URL = {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1993/6285.html},
    Number = {UCB/CSD-93-765},
    Abstract = {This thesis considers two related issues: the impact of disk layout on file system throughput and the integration of transaction support in file systems. <p>Historic file system designs have optimized for reading, as read throughput was the I/O performance bottleneck. Since increasing main-memory cache sizes effectively reduce disk read traffic, disk write performance has become the I/O performance bottleneck. This thesis presents both simulation and implementation analysis of the performance of read-optimized and write-optimized file systems. <p>An example of a file system with a disk layout optimized for writing is a log-structured file system, where writes are bundled and written sequentially. Empirical evidence in [ROSE90], [ROSE91], and [ROSE92] indicates that a log-structured file system provides superior write performance and equivalent read performance to traditional file systems. This thesis analyzes and evaluates the log-structured file system presented in [ROSE91], isolating some of the critical issues in its design. Additionally, a modified design addressing these issues is presented and evaluated. <p>Log-structured file systems also offer the potential for superior integration of transaction processing into the system. Because log-structured file systems use logging techniques to store files, incorporating transaction mechanisms into the file system is a natural extension. This thesis presents the design, implementation, and analysis of both user-level transaction management on read and write optimized file systems and embedded transaction management in a write optimized file system. <p>This thesis shows that both log-structured file systems and simple, read-optimized file systems can attain nearly 100% of the disk bandwidth when I/Os are large or sequential. The improved write performance of LFS discussed in [ROSE92] is only attainable when garbage collection overhead is small, and in nearly all of the workloads examined, performance of LFS is comparable to that of a read-optimized file system. On transaction processsing workloads where a steady stream of small, random I/Os are issued, garbage collection reduces LFS throughput by 35% to 40%.}
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Thesis
%A Seltzer, Margo Ilene
%T File System Performance and Transaction Support
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 1993
%@ UCB/CSD-93-765
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1993/6285.html
%F Seltzer:CSD-93-765