FlashFire XP 32Bit (0.a0) - New Buffering Engine

[zartoven]

New developing version is available now.
I implemented a new buffering engine to remove some limitations of previous version.

Here are key changes:
- Minimized computation overhead for big capacity SSDs
(I am expecting performance gain on regular SSDs )
- More than 32 Mbytes write buffer can be configured by registry setting.

FlashFire0a0.zip

(88.53 KiB) Downloaded 15259 times

This is registry setting to configure 64MB buffer size.
Extract zip file, right-click reg file, and choose merge from pop up menu, and reboot your system.
The file is simple text file, and will be able to find out how to configure the buffer size.

ffire-buffersize.zip

(319 Bytes) Downloaded 5201 times

[Slapo]

The naming scheme is interesting, seems to be hexadecimal
Does this new version also solve the dirty bit problem?
Will there be one for Windows 7 x64?

Thanks

[Nina]

Hi

Can I force installation (using compatibility mode) on Windows 7 ?

Thanks

[zartto]

Can I force installation (using compatibility mode) on Windows 7 ?

No! This version is only for XP.
You should install this version instead... viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7

[zartto]

The naming scheme is interesting, seems to be hexadecimal
Does this new version also solve the dirty bit problem?
Will there be one for Windows 7 x64?

Thanks

Not yet...
I am aware of the task list, but I am still trying to publish my technical paper about FlashFire.
It keeps being rejected.

These days, I am trying to expand the target of FlashFire solution.
Previous version was not much useful on middle-level and high-end SSDs.

Reviewers who gave me rejection pointed following issues:
(1) Reliability problem: holding data in buffer may cause file system crash for sudden power failures.
(2) The buffering technique is not novel: High-end SSDs are using write-coalescing in the drive already.
--> As the market mature, component cost will drop, and HW solution (on-board write buffer) will be more popular. Therefore FlashFire solution will not be useful at that time.
(3) Log-structured File System is better than FlashFire Solution: Log-structured File System can change random writes (small writes) to sequential writes, and thus there will be no performance problem with log-structured file system.
(and so on)

Recently, I implemented new buffering engine, and I am evaluating FlashFire on six SSDs.
- Two Low-end SSDs:HP Mini, ASUS Eeepc1000
- Two Middle-Level SSDs: Kingston ssdNOW V series 64G, RiData Ultra-S 64G
- Two High-end SSDs: OCZ Vertex 60G, Intel X-25M 80G

The tests are being progressed... and until now, the results are very positive.

Comments will be very helpful.

[Nina]

The naming scheme is interesting, seems to be hexadecimal
Does this new version also solve the dirty bit problem?
Will there be one for Windows 7 x64?

Thanks

Not yet...
I am aware of the task list, but I am still trying to publish my technical paper about FlashFire.
It keeps being rejected.

These days, I am trying to expand the target of FlashFire solution.
Previous version was not much useful on middle-level and high-end SSDs.

Reviewers who gave me rejection pointed following issues:
(1) Reliability problem: holding data in buffer may cause file system crash for sudden power failures.
(2) The buffering technique is not novel: High-end SSDs are using write-coalescing in the drive already.
--> As the market mature, component cost will drop, and HW solution (on-board write buffer) will be more popular. Therefore FlashFire solution will not be useful at that time.
(3) Log-structured File System is better than FlashFire Solution: Log-structured File System can change random writes (small writes) to sequential writes, and thus there will be no performance problem with log-structured file system.
(and so on)

Recently, I implemented new buffering engine, and I am evaluating FlashFire on six SSDs.
- Two Low-end SSDs:HP Mini, ASUS Eeepc1000
- Two Middle-Level SSDs: Kingston ssdNOW V series 64G, RiData Ultra-S 64G
- Two High-end SSDs: OCZ Vertex 60G, Intel X-25M 80G

The tests are being progressed... and until now, the results are very positive.

Comments will be very helpful.

Thanks a lot Zartto, I wish you good luck.

[butz.tsai]

Flashfire really a good tool.
Can I have your e-mail address?

[zartto]

Can I have your e-mail address?

I am pretty sure that you will be able to find out my contact by googling.

[Slapo]

(2) The buffering technique is not novel: High-end SSDs are using write-coalescing in the drive already.
--> As the market mature, component cost will drop, and HW solution (on-board write buffer) will be more popular. Therefore FlashFire solution will not be useful at that time.
(3) Log-structured File System is better than FlashFire Solution: Log-structured File System can change random writes (small writes) to sequential writes, and thus there will be no performance problem with log-structured file system.
(and so on)

2. I don't think so - it's quite likely that cheap storage devices will have low amounts of on-board buffers and worse I/O concurrency than more expensive solutions, RAM buffers could help there.
3. Unless it's a part of the OS/distribution, many people won't touch such file systems, also because of reliability concerns.

[butz.tsai]

Can I have your e-mail address?

I am pretty sure that you will be able to find out my contact by googling.

This one ? zflashxxxxx@gmail.com?