How to Write to SSDs [pdf]
Published in the Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (Vol. 19), the paper 'How to Write to SSDs' by Lee et al. offers an in-depth examination of SSD write operations. It explains the internal structure of SSDs, including NAND flash memory, FTL (Flash Translation Layer), and the impact of write amplification. The authors discuss various write patterns (sequential, random, and mixed) and their effects on performance and device lifespan. Key recommendations include aligning writes to page boundaries, using larger write sizes, and minimizing overwrites to reduce garbage collection overhead. The paper also covers emerging technologies like ZNS (Zoned Namespaces) SSDs and provides benchmarks showing up to 5x improvement in write throughput with optimized patterns.
Optimizing SSD writes can dramatically improve application performance and extend hardware lifespan.