Technology Trends

This page describes a number of technology trends that impact computer architects in general, and file system designers in particular.

These trends motivate the xFS file system. Here's the xFS home page.

As part of this study, I gathered historical information about disk and memory performance and prices. I examined advertisements in Byte magazine to determine when different hardware was available and to determine its cost over time. The information for disks and memory is available here.

The impact of trends in technology on file system design.

This paper describes trends in hardware and applications and describes how these trends motivate the xFS file system design.

Disk Drive Technology
- Table of historical disk data.
- README for historical data.
- Plot: Capacity/Cost v. Time (README)
- Summary of disk drive trends (Dec 1996)
- Additional Information About Disks
  - magnetoresistive heads.
  - Seagate drive specs. More seagate drive specs. IBM drive specs. Quantum drive specs.
Memory Technology
- Table of historical memory data.
- README describing historical data.
- Plot: Capacity/Cost v. Time (README) Plot: Capacity/Cost v. Time (README)
- Summary of memory trends (Dec 1996)
- Additional Information About Memory
  - Dave Patterson's IRAM Class
Network Technology
- Summary of network trends (Dec 1996).
- Additional Information About Networks
  - Active Messages Home Page.
Processor Technology
- Additional Information About Processors
  - SPEC Processor Performance.

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