Using Flash Memory as Storage for Read-Intensive Database

Flash memory is now widely deployed as data storage for mobile devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras and PDA's. Since the gap of access time to main memory and disk continue growing, flash memory becomes more attractive for speeding up data analysis application as a faster non-volatile storage in laptops and personal computers. We may expect that flash memory will finally take the place of magnetic disk in the next few years. Therefore, it is possible for us to consider running a database system on the flash computing platforms. However, disk-based database technology can not be used on flash memory directly because of its different characteristics from magnetic disk. In this paper, we make an analysis of the characteristics of flash memory, and propose that a read-intensive database system should be run on the flash platform. It makes use of the characteristics of flash memory effectively to acquire more benefits by using traditional database technology on flash memory.