SSDynamics Capstone Overview

Sponsors

Chris Ortiz
Senior Technologist, SSD Validation
Western Digital Corp., Flash Business Unit

John Lee
Senior Director, SSD Validation
Western Digital Corp., Flash Business Unit

Advisors

Savannah Chappus
Brian Donnelly

Project Description

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are at the core of modern storage, and NVMe SSDs in particular offer high-speed, high-efficiency data handling. Our capstone project aims to improve SSD reliability by automating test generation for NVMe validation at Western Digital.

Currently, engineers must manually create validation tests — a process prone to bias and limited coverage. Our solution introduces a dynamic test generation system using TLA+ specifications and random model simulation. This generates robust test sequences that explore new state spaces, helping detect edge cases that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Through this, Western Digital’s engineers can validate NVMe drives more efficiently, reduce manual workload, and improve long-term product stability. The final system integrates with NVMe-CLI and is compatible with Western Digital’s validation infrastructure.