Towards Mass Storage Systems with Object Granularity

Many applications, that need mass storage, manipulate data sets with KB – MB size objects. In contrast, mass storage devices work most efficiently for the storage and transfer of large files in the MB – GB range. Reflecting these device characteristics, mass storage systems typically have a file level granularity. To overcome the impedance mismatch between small objects and large files, we propose a move towards mass storage systems with object granularity. With an object granularity system, the application programmer stores and retrieves objects rather than files. The system internally maps and re-maps these objects into files. The system can adapt to changing object access patterns by re-mapping objects. This allows the application to be more efficient than if it were built on top of a traditional file granularity mass storage system, employing a fixed mapping of objects to files. In this paper we report on investigations on the potential benefits of object granulari...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: MSS
• Authors: Koen Holtman, Peter van der Stok, Ian Willers
• Keywords: Hardware, Mass Storage, Mass Storage System, MSS 2000, Object Granularity