This release marks the RFC submission of NSD (Neural Storage Driver) to the Linux kernel mailing list.
What is NSD?
NSD is a learning page cache prefetcher that monitors I/O patterns via a hook in filemap_read() and prefetches pages using page_cache_sync_readahead(). It uses a synaptic Markov chain to learn access patterns at 4KB region granularity.
Branch
upstream-prep-v1— Full kernel patch series ready for upstream
Patch Series
- mm/filemap: Add NSD prefetch hook point
- nsd: Core prediction engine
- Documentation: Add NSD filesystem documentation
Performance (x86_64, SATA SSD, kernel 7.0.0)
- SQLite FTS (4GB table): -18.8% query time
- Sequential 64K buffered: +22.6% throughput
- Random 4K: +1.1% (noise)
- Read latency: 130us (no regression)
Status
Sent as RFC to LKML and linux-mm on 2026-07-25. Awaiting architectural feedback.