Mass Storage Structure

Module 13: Mass-Storage Structure
• Disk Structure
• Disk Scheduling
• Disk Management
• Swap-Space Management
• Disk Reliability
• Stable-Storage Implementation
• Tertiary Storage Devices
• Operating System Issues
• Performance Issues
Applied Operating System Concepts 13.1 Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne 1999
Disk Structure
• Disk drives are addressed as large 1-dimensional arrays of

logical blocks, where the logical block is the smallest unit of
transfer.
• The 1-dimensional array of logical blocks is mapped into the
sectors of the disk sequentially.
– Sector 0 is the first sector of the first track on the
outermost cylinder.
– Mapping proceeds in order through that track, then the
rest of the tracks in that cylinder, and then through the
rest of the cylinders from outermost to innermost.
Disk Scheduling
• The operating system is responsible for using hardware

efficiently — for the disk drives, this means having a fast
access time and disk bandwidth.
• Access time has two major components
– Seek time is the time for the disk are to move the heads
to the cylinder containing the desired sector.
– Rotational latency is the additional time waiting for the
disk to rotate the desired sector to the disk head.
• Minimize seek time
• Seek time ≈ seek distance
• Disk bandwidth is the total number of bytes transferred,
divided by the total time between the first request for service
and the completion of the last transfer.
Disk Scheduling (Cont.)
• Several algorithms exist to schedule the servicing of disk I/O

requests.
• We illustrate them with a request queue (0-199).
98, 183, 37, 122, 14, 124, 65, 67
Head pointer 53
FCFS
Illustration shows total head movement of 640 cylinders.
SSTF
• Selects the request with the minimum seek time from the
current head position.
• SSTF scheduling is a form of SJF scheduling; may cause
starvation of some requests.
• Illustration shows total head movement of 236 cylinders.
SSTF (Cont.)
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.
• Sometimes called the elevator algorithm.
• Illustration shows total head movement of 208 cylinders.
SCAN (Cont.)
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.
• Treats the cylinders as a circular list that wraps around from
the last cylinder to the first one.
C-SCAN (Cont.)
C-LOOK
• 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.
C-LOOK (Cont.)
Selecting a Disk-Scheduling Algorithm
• SSTF is common and has a natural appeal

• SCAN and C-SCAN perform better for systems that place a
heavy load on the disk.
• Performance depends on the number and types of requests.
• Requests for disk service can be influenced by the file-
allocation method.
• The disk-scheduling algorithm should be written as a separate
module of the operating system, allowing it to be replaced with
a different algorithm if necessary.
• Either SSTF or LOOK is a reasonable choice for the default
algorithm.
Disk Management
• Low-level formatting, or physical formatting — Dividing a disk

into sectors that the disk controller can read and write.
• To use a disk to hold files, the operating system still needs to
record its own data structures on the disk.
– Partition the disk into one or more groups of cylinders.
– Logical formatting or “making a file system”.
• Boot block initializes system.
– The bootstrap is stored in ROM.
– Bootstrap loader program.
• Methods such as sector sparing used to handle bad blocks.
Swap-Space Management
• Swap-space — Virtual memory uses disk space as an

extension of main memory.
• Swap-space can be carved out of the normal file system,or,
more commonly, it can be in a separate disk partition.
• Swap-space management
– 4.3BSD allocates swap space when process starts;
holds text segment (the program) and data segment.
– Kernel uses swap maps to track swap-space use.
– Solaris 2 allocates swap space only when a page is
forced out of physical memory, not when the virtual
memory page is first created.
Disk Reliability
• Several improvements in disk-use techniques involve the use

of multiple disks working cooperatively.
• Disk striping uses a group of disks as one storage unit.
• RAID schemes improve performance and improve the
reliability of the storage system by storing redundant data.
– Mirroring or shadowing keeps duplicate of each disk.
– Block interleaved parity uses much less redundancy.
Stable-Storage Implementation
• Write-ahead log scheme requires stable storage.

• To implement stable storage:
– Replicate information on more than one nonvolatile
storage media with independent failure modes.
– Update information in a controlled manner to ensure that
we can recover the stable data after any failure during
data transfer or recovery.
Tertiary Storage Devices
• Low cost is the defining characteristic of tertiary storage.

• Generally, tertiary storage is built using removable media
• Common examples of removable media are floppy disks and
CD-ROMs; other types are available.
Removable Disks
• Floppy disk — thin flexible disk coated with magnetic material,

enclosed in a protective plastic case.
– Most floppies hold about 1 MB; similar technology is
used for removable disks that hold more than 1 GB.
– Removable magnetic disks can be nearly as fast as hard
disks, but they are at a greater risk of damage from
exposure.
Removable Disks (Cont.)
• A magneto-optic disk records data on a rigid platter coated

with magnetic material.
– Laser heat is used to amplify a large, weak magnetic
field to record a bit.
– Laser light is also used to read data (Kerr effect).
– The magneto-optic head flies much farther from the disk
surface than a magnetic disk head, and the magnetic
material is covered with a protective layer of plastic or
glass; resistant to head crashes.
• Optical disks do not use magnetism; they employ special
materials that are altered by laser light.
WORM Disks
• The data on read-write disks can be modified over and over.

• WORM (“Write Once, Read Many Times”) disks can be
written only once.
• Thin aluminum film sandwiched between two glass or plastic
platters.
• To write a bit, the drive uses a laser light to burn a small hole
through the aluminum; information can be destroyed by not
altered.
• Very durable and reliable.
• Read Only disks, such ad CD-ROM and DVD, com from the
factory with the data pre-recorded.
Tapes
• Compared to a disk, a tape is less expensive and holds more

data, but random access is much slower.
• Tape is an economical medium for purposes that do not
require fast random access, e.g., backup copies of disk data,
holding huge volumes of data.
• Large tape installations typically use robotic tape changers
that move tapes between tape drives and storage slots in a
tape library.
– stacker – library that holds a few tapes
– silo – library that holds thousands of tapes
• A disk-resident file can be archived to tape for low cost
storage; the computer can stage it back into disk storage for
active use.
Operating System Issues
• Major OS jobs are to manage physical devices and to present

a virtual machine abstraction to applications
• For hard disks, the OS provides two abstraction:
– Raw device – an array of data blocks.
– File system – the OS queues and schedules the
interleaved requests from several applications.
Application Interface
• Most OSs handle removable disks almost exactly like fixed

disks — a new cartridge is formatted and an empty file system
is generated on the disk.
• Tapes are presented as a raw storage medium, i.e., and
application does not not open a file on the tape, it opens the
whole tape drive as a raw device.
• Usually the tape drive is reserved for the exclusive use of that
application.
• Since the OS does not provide file system services, the
application must decide how to use the array of blocks.
• Since every application makes up its own rules for how to
organize a tape, a tape full of data can generally only be used
by the program that created it.
Tape Drives
• The basic operations for a tape drive differ from those of a

disk drive.
• locate positions the tape to a specific logical block, not an
entire track (corresponds to seek).
• The read position operation returns the logical block number
where the tape head is.
• The space operation enables relative motion.
• Tape drives are “append-only” devices; updating a block in
the middle of the tape also effectively erases everything
beyond that block.
• An EOT mark is placed after a block that is written.
File Naming
• The issue of naming files on removable media is especially

difficult when we want to write data on a removable cartridge
on one computer, and then use the cartridge in another
computer.
• Contemporary OSs generally leave the name space problem
unsolved for removable media, and depend on applications
and users to figure out how to access and interpret the data.
• Some kinds of removable media (e.g., CDs) are so well
standardized that all computers use them the same way.
Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM)
• A hierarchical storage system extends the storage hierarchy

beyond primary memory and secondary storage to
incorporate tertiary storage — usually implemented as a
jukebox of tapes or removable disks.
• Usually incorporate tertiary storage by extending the file
system.
– Small and frequently used files remain on disk.
– Large, old, inactive files are archived to the jukebox.
• HSM is usually found in supercomputing centers and other
large installaitons that have enormous volumes of data.
Speed
• Two aspects of speed in tertiary stroage are bandwidth and

latency.
• Bandwidth is measured in bytes per second.
– Sustained bandwidth – average data rate during a large
transfer; # of bytes/transfer time.
Data rate when the data stream is actually flowing.
– Effective bandwidth – average over the entire I/O time,
including seek or locate, and cartridge switching.
Drive’s overall data rate.
Speed (Cont.)
• Access latency – amount of time needed to locate data.

– Access time for a disk – move the arm to the selected
cylinder and wait for the rotational latency; < 35
milliseconds.
– Access on tape requires winding the tape reels until the
selected block reaches the tape head; tens or hundreds
of seconds.
– Generally say that random access within a tape cartridge
is about a thousand times slower than random access on
disk.
• The low cost of tertiary storage is a result of having many
cheap cartridges share a few expensive drives.
• A removable library is best devoted to the storage of
infrequently used data, because the library can only satisfy a
relatively small number of I/O requests per hour.
Reliability
• A fixed disk drive is likely to be more reliable than a

removable disk or tape drive.
• An optical cartridge is likely to be more reliable than a
magnetic disk or tape.
• A head crash in a fixed hard disk generally destroys the data,
whereas the failure of a tape drive or optical disk drive often
leaves the data cartridge unharmed.
Cost
• Main memory is much more expensive than disk storage

• The cost per megabyte of hard disk storage is competitive
with magnetic tape if only one tape is used per drive.
• The cheapest tape drives and the cheapest disk drives have
had about the same storage capacity over the years.
• Tertiary storage gives a cost savings only when the number of
cartridges is considerably larger than the number of drives.
MS-DOS Disk Layout
4.3BSD Text-Segment Swap Map
4.3BSD Data-Segment Swap Map

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Module 13: Mass-Storage Structure

• Disk drives are addressed as large 1-dimensional arrays of

• The operating system is responsible for using hardware

• Several algorithms exist to schedule the servicing of disk I/O

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

Illustration shows total head movement of 640 cylinders.

• Provides a more uniform wait time than SCAN.

• SSTF is common and has a natural appeal

• Low-level formatting, or physical formatting — Dividing a disk

• Swap-space — Virtual memory uses disk space as an

• Several improvements in disk-use techniques involve the use

• Write-ahead log scheme requires stable storage.

• Low cost is the defining characteristic of tertiary storage.

• Floppy disk — thin flexible disk coated with magnetic material,

• A magneto-optic disk records data on a rigid platter coated

• The data on read-write disks can be modified over and over.

• Compared to a disk, a tape is less expensive and holds more

• Major OS jobs are to manage physical devices and to present

• Most OSs handle removable disks almost exactly like fixed

• The basic operations for a tape drive differ from those of a

• The issue of naming files on removable media is especially

• A hierarchical storage system extends the storage hierarchy

• Two aspects of speed in tertiary stroage are bandwidth and

• Access latency – amount of time needed to locate data.

• A fixed disk drive is likely to be more reliable than a

• Main memory is much more expensive than disk storage

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