{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,30]],"date-time":"2026-04-30T05:39:22Z","timestamp":1777527562141,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2009,6,1]],"date-time":"2009-06-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1243814400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.acm.org\/publications\/policies\/copyright_policy#Background"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000143","name":"Division of Computing and Communication Foundations","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["CNS-0720699CCF-0811417"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["CNS-0720699CCF-0811417"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000143","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000144","name":"Division of Computer and Network Systems","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["CNS-0720699CCF-0811417"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["CNS-0720699CCF-0811417"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000144","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["ACM Trans. Storage"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2009,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Various activities that intend to enhance performance, reliability, and availability of storage systems are scheduled with low priority and served during idle times. Under such conditions, idleness becomes a valuable \u201cresource\u201d that needs to be efficiently managed. A common approach in system design is to be nonwork conserving by \u201cidle waiting\u201d, that is, delay the scheduling of background jobs to avoid slowing down upcoming foreground tasks.<\/jats:p>\n          <jats:p>In this article, we complement \u201cidle waiting\u201d with the \u201cestimation\u201d of background work to be served in every idle interval to effectively manage the trade-off between the performance of foreground and background tasks. As a result, the storage system is better utilized without compromising foreground performance. Our analysis shows that if idle times have low variability, then idle waiting is not necessary. Only if idle times are highly variable does idle waiting become necessary to minimize the impact of background activity on foreground performance. We further show that if there is burstiness in idle intervals, then it is possible to predict accurately the length of incoming idle intervals and use this information to serve more background jobs without affecting foreground performance.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/1534912.1534913","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2009,6,9]],"date-time":"2009-06-09T12:44:12Z","timestamp":1244551452000},"page":"1-25","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":34,"title":["Efficient management of idleness in storage systems"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"5","author":[{"given":"Ningfang","family":"Mi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Alma","family":"Riska","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Seagate Research, Pittsburgh, PA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Qi","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Microsoft, Redmond, WA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Evgenia","family":"Smirni","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Erik","family":"Riedel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Seagate Research, Pittsburgh, PA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2009,6,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/RELDIS.2005.20"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/511334.511342"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1254882.1254917"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","volume-title":"Proceeding of the SuperComputing Conferences. 1--11","author":"Colarelli D.","unstructured":"Colarelli , D. and Grunwald , D . 2002. Massive arrays of idle disks for storage archives . In Proceeding of the SuperComputing Conferences. 1--11 . Colarelli, D. and Grunwald, D. 2002. Massive arrays of idle disks for storage archives. In Proceeding of the SuperComputing Conferences. 1--11."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/319151.319168"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_6_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 2nd USENIX Symposium on Mobile and Location-Independent Computing. 121--137","author":"Douglis F.","unstructured":"Douglis , F. , Krishnan , P. , and Bershad , B. N . 1995. Adaptive disk spin-down policies for mobile computers . In Proceedings of the 2nd USENIX Symposium on Mobile and Location-Independent Computing. 121--137 . Douglis, F., Krishnan, P., and Bershad, B. N. 1995. Adaptive disk spin-down policies for mobile computers. In Proceedings of the 2nd USENIX Symposium on Mobile and Location-Independent Computing. 121--137."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_7_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1095810.1095835"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_8_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the Winter'95 USENIX Conference. 201--222","author":"Golding R.","unstructured":"Golding , R. , Bosch , P. , Staelin , C. , Sullivan , T. , and Wilkes , J . 1995. Idleness is not sloth . In Proceedings of the Winter'95 USENIX Conference. 201--222 . Golding, R., Bosch, P., Staelin, C., Sullivan, T., and Wilkes, J. 1995. Idleness is not sloth. In Proceedings of the Winter'95 USENIX Conference. 201--222."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_9_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1019129116852"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_10_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1095810.1095836"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_11_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1375457.1375485"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_12_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS). 104--111","author":"Litzkow M. J.","unstructured":"Litzkow , M. J. , Livny , M. , and Mutka , M. W . 1988. Condor - A hunter of idle workstations . In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS). 104--111 . Litzkow, M. J., Livny, M., and Mutka, M. W. 1988. Condor - A hunter of idle workstations. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS). 104--111."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_13_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-540-30183-7_22"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_14_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0166-5316(94)90009-4"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the Symposium on the Dependability of Systems and Networks (DSN). 492--501","author":"Mi N.","unstructured":"Mi , N. , Riska , A. , Smirni , E. , and Riedel , E . 2008. Enhancing data availability in disk drives through background activities . In Proceedings of the Symposium on the Dependability of Systems and Networks (DSN). 492--501 . Mi, N., Riska, A., Smirni, E., and Riedel, E. 2008. Enhancing data availability in disk drives through background activities. In Proceedings of the Symposium on the Dependability of Systems and Networks (DSN). 492--501."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_16_1","volume-title":"International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB). 162--173","author":"Muntz R. R.","unstructured":"Muntz , R. R. and Lui , J. C. S. 1990. Performance analysis of disk arrays under failures . In International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB). 162--173 . Muntz, R. R. and Lui, J. C. S. 1990. Performance analysis of disk arrays under failures. In International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB). 162--173."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_17_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0166-5316(03)00058-0"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_18_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.peva.2004.09.003"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_19_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference. 97--103","author":"Riska A.","unstructured":"Riska , A. and Riedel , E . 2006. Disk drive level workload characterization . In Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference. 97--103 . Riska, A. and Riedel, E. 2006. Disk drive level workload characterization. In Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference. 97--103."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_20_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference. 43--56","author":"Riska A.","unstructured":"Riska , A. and Riedel , E . 2008. Idle read after write - IRAW . In Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference. 43--56 . Riska, A. and Riedel, E. 2008. Idle read after write - IRAW. In Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference. 43--56."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_21_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the International Symposium on Modeling and Simulation of Computer and Communications Systems (MASCOTS). IEEE Press.","author":"Schwarz T. J. E.","unstructured":"Schwarz , T. J. E. , Xin , Q. , Miller , E. L. , Long , D. D. E. , Hospodor , A. , and Ng , S . 2004. Disk scrubbing in large archival storage systems . 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