Transcript Disks
Disk Scheduling
Disk IO requests are for blocks, by number
Block requests come in an ongoing stream from apps
Requests are queued (possibly blocking the process) until
the disk is available
OS can optimize disk performance by reordering the queue
Require low access time and high disk bandwidth.
Access time is the time to start transferring data
Bandwidth is the average transfer rate, from request to
completion
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. (large)
Rotational latency is the additional time waiting for the disk
to rotate the desired sector to the disk head. (small)
Minimize seek time seek distance
Operating System Concepts
13.1
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Disk Scheduling (Cont.)
Given a request queue of block numbers, minimize
summed seek distance
Block numbers are translated into track and sector numbers
Higher block numbers correspond to higher track numbers
Sector numbers may not be known exactly, but can be
computed for analysis
Example, for a disk with range 0-199:
98, 183, 37, 122, 14, 124, 65, 67
Head pointer initially at 53
Optimal service order is
37, 14, 65, 67, 98, 122, 124, 183 (208)
Operating System Concepts
13.2
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
FCFS
Illustration shows total head movement of 640 cylinders.
Operating System Concepts
13.3
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
SSTF
Selects the request with the minimum seek time from the
current head position.
Illustration shows total head movement of 236 cylinders.
SSTF scheduling is a form of SJF scheduling; may cause
starvation of some requests.
Not optimal
Operating System Concepts
13.4
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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 236 cylinders.
Waste at far ends
Operating System Concepts
13.5
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
LOOK
Version of 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.
Operating System Concepts
13.6
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
C-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.
Illustration shows total head movement of 183 cylinders,
plus return time.
Provides a more uniform wait time than SCAN.
Operating System Concepts
13.7
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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.
Illustration shows total head movement of 153 cylinders,
plus return time.
Operating System Concepts
13.8
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Selecting a Disk-Scheduling Algorithm
Performance depends on the number and types of requests.
SSTF is common and has a natural appeal, but can starve requests
SCAN and C-SCAN perform better for systems that place a heavy
load on the disk - lots of requests to hit
Optimal is NP-complete.
Requests for disk service can be influenced by the file-allocation
method and directory layout.
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.
Newer disks have
Lower seek time relative to latency
Built in scheduling - send requests in batches
OS level scheduling is important at a coarser grain level, for
important disk activity, e.g., VM
Operating System Concepts
13.9
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Bad Blocks
Disks come from the factory with bad blocks
File system solutions
Keep a bad blocks list, etc
Low level solutions
Sector sparing replaces bad blocks with spares, by a
mapping in the disk controller
Sector slipping slides them down
Interferes with disk scheduling - that’s why disks might be
left to their own devices (ha ha)
Operating System Concepts
13.10
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
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
In a separate disk partition with a special file system (no
directory, etc)
Combination of these, e.g., Solaris, which always rereads
text pages from the file system (they’re never dirty, and
hence never swapped out)
Swap-space management
4.3BSD allocates swap space when process starts; holds
text segment and data segment.
Solaris 2 allocates swap space only when a page is forced
out of physical memory, not when the virtual memory page
is first created.
Operating System Concepts
13.11
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
RAID
RAID schemes improve performance and improve the
reliability of the storage system by storing redundant data.
Disk striping uses a group of disks as one storage unit
Bit striping gives parallel transfer for all size transfer
Block striping gives parallel transfer for large transfers,
and concurrency for small accesses
Mirroring or shadowing keeps duplicate of each disk.
Block interleaved parity combines the ideas
RAID is arranged into six different levels.
Operating System Concepts
13.12
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
RAID Levels
Operating System Concepts
13.13
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
RAID (0 + 1) and (1 + 0)
Operating System Concepts
13.14
Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002