A Fast Mount and Stability Scheme for a NAND Flash Memory-based File System

NAND flash memory-based file systems cannot store their system-related information in the file system due to wear-leveling of NAND flash memory. This forces NAND flash memory-based file systems to scan the whole flash memory during their mounts. The mount time usually increases linearly according to the size of and the usage pattern of the flash memory. NAND flash memory has been widely used as the storage medium of mobile devices. Due to the fact that mobile devices have unstable power supply, the file system for NAND flash memory requires stable recovery mechanism from power failure. In this paper, we present design and implementation of a new NAND flash memory-based file system that provides fast mount and enhanced stability. Our file system mounts 19 times faster than JFFS2's and 2 times faster than YAFFS's. The stability of our file system is also shown to be equivalent to that of JFFS2.