Memory Systems: Cache, DRAM, Disk

This book is an excellent source that covers system, component and architectures of memory systems and how the total computer memory system is put together into a working system. The coverage of the material is up to date and addresses the critical issues that are facing the present and next generation memory systems being implemented and designed today. The book was well written and is a great source for engineering students and even to a degree non-engineering people. For me, a seasoned engineer, that is relatively new to memory systems, is has been a great source in helping me understand the overall system and how it all works. It also addresses some of the major engineering issues facing todays design that I am presently working on and covers the details of the components to give a good overall understanding of how it all fits together. An excellent overall source to have on hand for any engineer working on memory systems

Great detail in every section but so well written that it is easy to follow. And quite engaging (if you're into this kind of stuff I guess)The only negative is that SSDs aren't covered but since it was published in 2007, what can you do? If they put out an update that includes SSDs, it would be worth buying again...

This book provides a good overview of memory systems, with Disk I/O included.It has a comprehensive coverage.However, it does not go into details on some important subjects, so supplemental reading is required.

I purchased this book looking for the details of the inner workings of hard disk drive technology, and to my surprise, the book has overcome all my expectatives. Clear explanations, precise language, and a technical detail that it is hard to find on similar books. It is clear to me that the authors know "a little" about what they are writing about ... 100% recommendable.

Firstly, this book is well written, each of the 3 authors is lucid and expert. The problem is that it is dated and the price is one that you should be paying to get something more up to date. Of the 3 sections, the HDD part is the most obsolete. It was written just before SSD ramped up and does not really consider that. So, you will find an expert discussion of HDDs but it just won't be much use to you. Not only does it predate the shift of use of HDDs mostly to colder data and backup, it also does not cover major topics like head wear from asperities, or shingling, HAMR or MAMR. The first part of the book about caches is really thorough and very expert. If you are designing an ASIC or SOC this level of detail is probably what you want. For most of the rest of us, Hennessy's architecture book covers cache hierarchy and its importance in a better context, IMO. Finally the DRAM section is pretty good on covering the controller and channel aspects, which I have not seen done elsewhere. Great discussions of the finer points of things like queueing and reordering - but it stops at DDR3, so we get nothing about bank groups or other innovations in DDR4, or GDDR, or HBM. So I learned from these (well, not much about HDD) but it is not well positioned to be a reference course work. It needs and update on DRAM, SSD is now more important (and quite different from) HDD, and the cache section to be relevant needs updates on things like partitioning, QoS, differences between SOC with 4 cores and a server with 64 cores, etc.