Performing sound flash device measurements

Abstract

It is amazingly easy to get meaningless results when measuring flash devices, partly because of the peculiarity of flash memory, but primarily because their behavior is determined by layers of complex, proprietary, and undocumented software and hardware. In this demonstration, we share the lessons we learnt developing the uFlip benchmark and conducting experiments with a wide range of flash devices. We illustrate the problems that are actual obstacles to sound performance and energy measurements, and we show how to mitigate the effects of these problems. We also present the uFlip web site and its on-line visualization tool that should help the research community investigate flash device behavior.