Embedded NAND Flash File System for Mobile Multimedia Devices

Abstract

In this work, we present a novel mobile multimedia file system, MNFS, which is specifically designed for NAND flash memory. Our design specifically addresses the needs of devices such as MP3 players, personal media players (PMPs), digital camcorders, etc. The file system has three novel features important in mobile multimedia applications: (1) predictable and uniform write latency, (2) quick file system mount, and (3) a small memory footprint. We, implemented the proto-type file system on an embedded platform. In our experiments, MNFS exhibits uniform I/O latency for sequential write operation. It is mountable within 0.2 seconds and available with only 34 Kbytes of heap memory for a 128 Mbytes volume. The mounting time is 30 times faster compared to that of YAFFS, which is a well known file system for NAND flash memory, and the heap memory usage is only 5% of the YAFFS usage(1).