P&S Understanding and Designing Modern Storage Systems - L1: Course Introduction (Spring 2026)
Why It Matters
Understanding modern SSD architecture and its challenges is essential for developing storage solutions that meet escalating performance and reliability demands across data‑center and consumer markets.
Key Takeaways
- •Course teaches modern NAND flash SSD design fundamentals.
- •Safari group focuses on robust, energy‑efficient, low‑latency architectures.
- •SSDs combine multiple cores, DRAM, and flash dice in complex hierarchy.
- •Flash translation layer manages wear‑leveling, garbage collection, and address mapping.
- •Hands‑on projects explore near‑data processing and emerging non‑flash memory.
Summary
The video introduces the Spring 2026 iteration of the "Understanding and Designing Modern Storage Systems" course, led by Professor Onur Mutlu’s Safari Research Group at ETH Zurich, along with instructors Rakesh Nadig and Dr. Mohamed Sadati. It outlines the team’s expertise, spanning computer architecture, hardware security, bioinformatics, and especially storage system design, and highlights the group’s five research thrusts: robust, energy‑efficient, low‑latency, intelligent, and health‑focused architectures.
The instructors detail the core technical content: modern NAND flash SSDs, their layered architecture of embedded controllers, DRAM buffers, and multi‑die flash packages, and the unique constraints of flash memory such as erase‑before‑write, limited endurance, and asymmetric operation latencies. Central to managing these constraints is the Flash Translation Layer, which handles address translation, wear‑leveling, garbage collection, and I/O scheduling to deliver high performance while masking flash idiosyncrasies.
Examples from the group’s recent Safari Live workshop illustrate cutting‑edge research on NAND flash, new SSD designs, and near‑data processing. The course builds on three prior iterations, with lecture recordings available on YouTube, and promises to intersperse foundational lectures with the latest research findings, giving students exposure to both theory and practice.
The significance lies in equipping the next generation of engineers with hands‑on experience designing resilient, high‑performance storage systems—a critical capability as data‑intensive workloads demand ever‑greater capacity, speed, and energy efficiency. Graduates will be prepared to innovate in SSD firmware, hardware‑software co‑design, and emerging non‑flash memory technologies, directly impacting data‑center and consumer device markets.
Comments
Want to join the conversation?
Loading comments...