Persistent Memory File Systems: A Survey

TL;DR

This survey reviews the design challenges and solutions for file systems built on Persistent Memory, focusing on its unique properties, optimization techniques, and data persistence mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current research on persistent memory file systems, highlighting key design considerations and recent advancements.

Findings

Persistent Memory changes traditional file system design.

Optimizations for small file I/O improve performance.

Various approaches ensure data persistence and consistency.

Abstract

Persistent Memory (PM) is non-volatile byte-addressable memory that offers read and write latencies in the order of magnitude smaller than flash storage, such as SSDs. This survey discusses how file systems address the most prominent challenges in the implementation of file systems for Persistent Memory. First, we discuss how the properties of Persistent Memory change file system design. Second, we discuss work that aims to optimize small file I/O and the associated meta-data resolution. Third, we address how existing Persistent Memory file systems achieve (meta) data persistence and consistency.