• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.191-198
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• 2009

The FAT (File Allocation Table) compatible file system has been widely used in mobile devices and memory cards because of its data exchangeability among numerous platforms recognizing the FAT file system. By the way. modern embedded systems have tough demands for instant power failure recovery and superior performance for multimedia applications. The key issue is how to achieve the goals of superior write performance and instant booting capability while controlling compatibility issues. To achieve the goals while controlling compatibility issues. we devised a temporary meta-data journaling scheme for a FAT compatible file system. Benchmark results of the scheme implemented in a FAT compatible file system shows that it really improves write performance of the FAT file system by converting small random write for meta-data update to a large sequential write in journaling area. Also, it provides natural way to implement the instant booting capability. Nevertheless, the file system compatibility is temporarily compromised by the scheme because it stores updated meta-data in the temporary journaling area rather than to their original locations. However, the compatibility can be fully recovered at any time by journal-flushing that copies meta-data in journaling area to their original locations. Generally, the journal-flushing is done before un-mounting a memory card so that it can be used in other mobile devices which recognized FAT file system but not the temporary meta-data journaling scheme.