FAST '26 Call for Papers

Sponsored by USENIX, the Advanced Computing Systems Association.

The 24th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST '26) will take place on February 24–26, 2026, at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara in Santa Clara, CA, USA.

New for FAST '26: There will be two submission deadlines, and the conference introduces one-shot revisions.

Important Dates

Spring deadline:

• Paper submissions due: Tuesday, March 18, 2025
• Author response period begins: Tuesday, May 20, 2025
• Author response period ends: Thursday, May 22, 2025
• Notification to authors: Thursday, June 5, 2025
• Final paper files due: Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Fall deadline:

• Paper submissions due: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
• Author response period begins: Tuesday, November 18, 2025
• Author response period ends: Thursday, November 20, 2025
• Notification to authors: Monday, December 8, 2025
• Final paper files due: Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Overview

The 24th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST '26) brings together researchers and practitioners to explore new directions in the design, implementation, evaluation, and deployment of systems related to storage. The program committee interprets storage-related systems broadly, including low-level storage devices, distributed storage systems, information and data management, and other systems interconnected with storage. The conference will consist of technical presentations including refereed papers and poster sessions.

Topics

The topics of interest to FAST are various aspects of systems related to storage. These include and overlap with, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Archival systems
• AI for storage and storage for AI
• Auditing and provenance
• Big data, analytics, and data sciences
• Caching, replication, and consistency
• Cloud, multi- and hybrid-cloud environments
• Data deduplication and compression
• Database storage
• Distributed and networked storage (wide-area, grid, peer-to-peer)
• Emerging memory hierarchy design
• Empirical evaluation
• Experience with deployed-systems
• File system design
• Hardware design and prototypes
• HPC systems, including parallel I/O
• Key-value and NoSQL storage
• Memory-only storage systems
• Mobile, personal, embedded, and home storage
• Networking
• Novel and emerging storage technologies (e.g., DNA and glass storage)
• Performance and QoS
• Power-aware storage architectures
• RAID and erasure coding
• Reliability, availability, and disaster tolerance
• Search and data retrieval
• Security
• Storage Management

Submission Instructions

Two Submission Deadlines

FAST '26 offers authors the option to submit to one of two submission deadlines to align with other major conferences and encourage authors to submit their work when ready.

Submission Form

Please submit your short and long papers by one of the submission deadlines listed above, in PDF format via the submission form. Do not email submissions. There is no separate deadline for abstract submissions.

Page Limits

• Long papers: No longer than 12 pages, excluding references.
• Short papers: No longer than 6 pages, excluding references.

Conciseness is valued; express ideas in fewer pages than the limit if possible.

Formatting Requirements

• Papers must be typeset on U.S. letter-sized pages in two columns using 10-point Times Roman font on 12-point leading (single-spaced), within a text block 7" wide by 9" deep.
• Labels, captions, and other text in figures, graphs, and tables must use font sizes that, when printed, do not require magnification to be legible. References must not be set in a smaller font.
• Submissions violating these requirements will not be reviewed, and no extensions will be given for reformatting.
• A LaTeX template and style file are available on the USENIX templates page.

Double-blind Policy

Authors must not be identified in the submissions, either explicitly or by implication. Refer to your previous work as if written by a third party. Do not say "reference removed for blind review." Supplemental material must be anonymized. Submissions violating anonymization rules will not be considered for review. Contact the program co-chairs for clarification.

Prior Workshop Paper Policy

If a submission extends a prior workshop paper, include an anonymized copy of the workshop paper as supplemental material.

Simultaneous Submission Policy

Simultaneous submission of the same work to multiple venues, submission of previously published work, or plagiarism constitutes dishonesty or fraud and is prohibited.

Conflict Identification

Authors must indicate conflicts with PC members upon submission. Conflicts include institutional, advisor/advisee, collaboration within the past two years, and close family/friends. Guidelines are provided, and the PC will review conflicts.

Author Response Period

FAST '26 allows authors to respond to reviews prior to the final decision. Responses are limited to 1000 words and should focus on correcting factual errors, addressing reviewer questions, and clarifying ideas.

One-Shot Revision

A "one-shot revision" decision allows authors to address specific changes (potentially including new experiments) for a chance at acceptance. Revised papers have a single opportunity for acceptance or rejection.

Policy on FAST Resubmissions

Papers rejected at the spring deadline cannot be resubmitted at the FAST '26 fall deadline. However, papers rejected from either deadline may be resubmitted for FAST '27.

Contribution Types

• Long Papers: Up to 12 pages, excluding references. Includes refereed papers, empirical evaluations, and new system designs.
• Short Papers: Up to 6 pages, excluding references. Describe completed research with a smaller contribution that requires less analysis than long papers. Title should be prefixed with "Short Paper: ".
• Deployed-Systems Papers: Describe real operational systems, including systems in production. Focus on practical lessons learned. Title should be prefixed with "Deployed System: ".
• Call for Artifacts: Authors are encouraged to submit artifacts (traces, data, code, tools) to accompany their papers.

Test of Time Award Nominations

Nominations for the FAST Test of Time Award are due by November 1, 2025, for papers published 10+ years ago that have had a significant impact.