Abstract :
Results from information and communication theory have been used with phenomenal success in data storage systems, and have helped computer storage become ubiquitous and cheap. However, currently available solutions have hit a performance wall: existing approaches are designed for simpler channels, and do not match the needs of new storage technologies where the data must be packed as densely as possible on increasingly adverse mediums. Such performance provisioning not only violates fundamental information-theoretic laws but directly increases the cost of a storage system. At the device level, recent advances in emerging data storage technologies, such as non-volatile memories (NVM), bit-patterned media recording (BPMR) and heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) are bound to transform the storage industry. These technologies require the information to be stored and accessed in an asymmetric manner. At the system level, massive distributed storage networks, data centers and cloud storage systems desperately need new coding schemes to improve storage efficiency. The purpose of this issue is to provide a synthesized source of recent research results and to serve as a springboard for future work in this emerging area. We invite both theoretical and applied papers
