Ethan L. Miller

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Association for Computing Machinery

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Ethan L. Miller is a computer scientist whose foundational work in tertiary storage systems and file system analysis helped shape how massive data sets are managed in the era of declining disk prices and exploding data growth. His research centers on storage performance, file migration algorithms, and the behavioral patterns of long-term file systems. Miller’s most cited paper, “Performance Measurements of Tertiary Storage Devices” (1998, 33 citations), provided critical benchmarks for robotic tape libraries, revealing how removable media could still play a vital role in cost-effective, large-scale data archiving. In “Benchmarking Tape System Performance” (1998, 15 citations), he extended this work with rigorous performance metrics. His dissertation, “Long-term Unix file system activity and the efficacy of automatic file migration” (1998, 9 citations), introduced novel migration algorithms based on extensive file traces from four computing facilities, analyzing size, usage, and access patterns to optimize data movement between disk and tape. Though modest in citation counts by today’s standards, Miller’s contributions were pivotal during a transformative period in storage technology, offering practical insights for system designers and administrators grappling with the challenges of managing petabytes of data. His work remains a touchstone for researchers exploring hierarchical storage management and long-term data preservation.