Storage Management

HDD
 Address of sector
 Track, Head, Sector
 HDD Mechanism
 Seek time
 Disk arm / Head on correct cylinder.
 Rotational latency
 The disk is spinning.
 Disk arm / Head on start of correct sector.
 Head (only one) is active for read / write.
 Total Time
 Total Time = Seek Time + Rotational Latency + Transfer Time
 Normally
 Seek Time > Rotational Time > Transfer Time
 Minimize seek time
 Seek time  seek distance
 Disk Performance Examples
 Assume:
 Avg Seek Time = 5 ms
 7200 RPM Disk
 Time for one rotation: 60000 ms / 7200 ~= 8 ms
 Transfer Rate = 4 MByte/s
 Sector Size = 1 KByte
 Read sector from random place on disk:
 Seek (5ms) + Rot. Delay (4ms) + Transfer (0.25ms)
 Approx 10ms to fetch/put data: 100 KByte/sec
 Read sector from random place in same cylinder:
 Rot. Delay (4ms) + Transfer (0.25ms)
 Approx 5ms to fetch/put data: 200 KByte/sec
 Read next sector on same track:
 Transfer (0.25ms): 4 MByte/sec
 Key to using disk effectively (especially for file systems) is to minimize seek
and rotational delays
 Disk Scheduling
 Many sources of disk I/O request
 OS, System processes and Users processes
 I/O request includes
 input or output mode
 disk address
 memory address
 number of sectors to transfer
 OS maintains queue of requests, per disk or device
 Idle disk can immediately work on I/O request, busy disk means
work must queue
 Optimization algorithms only make sense when a queue exists
 Disk Scheduling (Cont.)
 Disk can do only one request at a time
 Request denoted by (Track / Cylinder)

2
5
7
3
2
2
User Head
Requests
 Several algorithms exist to schedule the servicing of disk I/O
requests
 First In First Out (FIFO)
 Shortest Seek Time First
 SCAN
 C-SCAN
 We illustrate scheduling algorithms with a request queue (0-199)

98, 183, 37, 122, 14, 124, 65, 67

Head pointer 53
 FCFS

total head movement of 640 cylinders

 FCFS
 Pros:
 Fair among requesters
 Cons: Order of arrival may be to random spots on the disk.
 Very long seeks
 SSTF (Shortest Seek Time First)
 “Selects the disk I/O request that require minimum head
movement from the current head position”

total head movement of 236 cylinders

 SSTF
 Pros:
 Reduce seeks
 Cons:
 May cause starvation of some requests
 Solution: SSTF with aging
 SCAN (Cont.)

total head movement of 208 cylinders

 SCAN

 “The disk arm starts at one end of the disk, and moves toward the
other end, servicing requests until it gets to the other end of the
disk, where the head movement is reversed and servicing
continues.”
 Also called the “Elevator Algorithm”
 Pros:
no starvation
low seek
 Cons:
 favor middle tracks
 may spend time on sparse tracks while dense requests
elsewhere
 C-SCAN (Cont.)

total head movement of 183 cylinders + Constant Time

 C-SCAN

 Provides a more uniform wait time than SCAN

 The head moves from one end of the disk to the other, servicing
requests as it goes
When it reaches the other end, however, it immediately
returns to the beginning of the disk, without servicing any
requests on the return trip.
 Pros:
 fair than SCAN
 accumulate work in remote region then go get it.
 Cons:
 longer seeks on the way back.
 C-LOOK (Cont.)

total head movement of 153 cylinders + Constant Time

 C-LOOK
 LOOK a version of SCAN, C-LOOK a version of C-SCAN
 “Arm only goes as far as the last request in each direction,
then reverses direction immediately, without first going all
the way to the end of the disk.”