Chapter 12: Mass-Storage Systems

Chapter 12: Mass-Storage Systems
Chapter 12: Mass-Storage Systems
 Overview of Mass Storage Structure

 Disk Structure
 Disk Attachment
 Disk Scheduling
 Disk Management
 Swap-Space Management
 RAID Structure
 Disk Attachment
 Stable-Storage Implementation
 Tertiary Storage Devices
 Operating System Issues
 Performance Issues
Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Jan 1, 2005 12.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
Objectives
 Describe the physical structure of secondary and tertiary storage

devices and the resulting effects on the uses of the devices
 Explain the performance characteristics of mass-storage devices
 Discuss operating-system services provided for mass storage,
including RAID and HSM
Overview of Mass Storage Structure
Magnetic disk and magnetic tape
 Magnetic disks provide bulk of secondary storage of modern computers

 PLATTER, DISK ARM
 Drives rotate at 60 to 200 times per second
 Transfer rate is rate at which data flow between drive and computer
 Positioning time (random-access time) is time to move disk arm to
desired cylinder (seek time) and time for desired sector to rotate under
the disk head (rotational latency)
 Head crash results from disk head making contact with the disk
surface
 That’s bad
 Disks can be removable
 Drive attached to computer via I/O bus
 Busses vary, including EIDE, ATA, SATA, USB, Fibre Channel, SCSI
 Host controller in computer uses bus to talk to disk controller built
into drive or storage array
Moving-head Disk Machanism
Overview of Mass Storage Structure (Cont.)
 Magnetic tape
 Slower than disk- 1000 times
 Was early secondary-storage medium
 Relatively permanent and holds large quantities of data
 Access time slow
 Random access ~1000 times slower than disk
 Mainly used for backup, storage of infrequently-used data,
transfer medium between systems
 Kept in spool and wound or rewound past read-write head
 Once data under head, transfer rates comparable to disk
 20-200GB typical storage
 Common technologies are 4mm, 8mm, 19mm, LTO-2 and
SDLT
Disk Structure
 Disk drives are addressed as large 1-dimensional arrays of logical

blocks, where the logical block is the smallest unit of transfer.
Bl0ck=512 bytes
 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 Attachment
 Host-attached storage accessed through I/O ports talking to I/O

busses
 SCSI itself is a bus, up to 16 devices on one cable, SCSI initiator
requests operation and SCSI targets perform tasks
 Each target can have up to 8 logical units (disks attached to
device controller
 FC is high-speed serial architecture
 Can be switched fabric with 24-bit address space – the basis of
storage area networks (SANs) in which many hosts attach to
many storage units
 Can be arbitrated loop (FC-AL) of 126 devices
Network-Attached Storage
 Network-attached storage (NAS) is storage made available over a

network rather than over a local connection (such as a bus)
 NFS and CIFS are common protocols
 Implemented via remote procedure calls (RPCs) between host and
storage
 New iSCSI protocol uses IP network to carry the SCSI protocol
Storage Area Network
 Common in large storage environments (and becoming more

common)
 Multiple hosts attached to multiple storage arrays - flexible
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
 Shortest seek time first

 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
 Elevator algo
 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
 New magnetic disk is a blank slate

 Before disk can store data it should be divided into sectors that the
disk controller can read and write. Process is called low level
formatting /physical formatting. IT fills the data with spetial DS
for each sector. DS_ header, data area and trailer. Head- sector
no, trailer error correcting code(ECC)- bytes in data area
 To use a disk to hold files, the operating system still needs to
record its own data structures on the disk.
 Divide disk into more group of cylinder
 Partition the disk into one or more groups of cylinders.
 Logical formatting or “making a file system”.-FAT
 Boot block initializes system.
 The bootstrap is stored in ROM.
 Bootstrap loader program.
 Methods such as sector sparing used to handle bad blocks.
Bad block
 Spare sectors- the controller can be

told to replace bad blocks with spare
sectors.
 SECTOR SPARING/FORWARDING
 Block 87, then controller calculates
Ecc n finds that sector is bad. It
reports to os. Reboot and replace.
 Replace add of block
 Sector slipping-17-> shift, 202->
Booting from a Disk in Windows 2000
MBR(master boot record)
Swap-Space Management
 Swap-space — Virtual memory uses disk space as an extension of

main memory.
 SWAP SPACE USE.
 Depends on the mem mgt used in diff os
 Overestimate- It wastes disk space that could be used for files
 Understimate- If a sys runs out of space required it may be forced
to abort processes
 It may be safer to over than to under
 SWAP SPACE LOCN
 Normal file system
 Separate disk partition
 Ex
 Value greater than 0 indicates page slot is occupied
 3- mapping with three process
Data Structures for Swapping on Linux
Systems
RAID Structure
 RAID – redundant arrays of inexpensive disks

 Economically feasible to attach many disks to a computer system
 Improvement of reliability via redundancy.

 Mirroring – every write is carried out in both disks
 Power failures, natural disasters copy
 solun
 First write copy first
 Non volatile RAM cache
 RAID is arranged into six different levels.
 Improvement in performance via parallelism
 Data striping- bit level, splitting of the bits of each byte across
multiple disks called bit level striping. array of eight disk
 Block level
RAID (cont)
 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.
 Level0- block level striping without
redundancy
 1= disk mirroring
 2 Memory style error correcting code
(ECC) organization. Each byte has a
parity bit 0 for even, 1 for odd parity
 Stored parity
 3bit interleaved parity organization=
error correction and error detection.0
or 1 missing – correct
4= block interleaved parity
organization,
 5= block interleaved distributed parity
 Data +parity in every disk( do not
store data in one disk and parity in
other disk)
 Level 6P+Q redundancy scheme,
stores extra redundant information
against multiple disk faliure. Reed-
solomon codes
 0+1- 0-provides performance
 1+0
RAID Levels
RAID (0 + 1) and (1 + 0)
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
installations that have enormous volumes of data.
Speed
 Two aspects of speed in tertiary storage 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.
Price per Megabyte of DRAM, From 1981 to 2004
Price per Megabyte of Magnetic Hard Disk, From 1981 to 2004
Price per Megabyte of a Tape Drive, From 1984-2000
End of Chapter 12

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Chapter 12: Mass-Storage Systems

Chapter 12: Mass-Storage Systems

 Overview of Mass Storage Structure

 Describe the physical structure of secondary and tertiary storage

 Magnetic disks provide bulk of secondary storage of modern computers

 Disk drives are addressed as large 1-dimensional arrays of logical

 The 1-dimensional array of logical blocks is mapped into the

 Host-attached storage accessed through I/O ports talking to I/O

 Network-attached storage (NAS) is storage made available over a

 Common in large storage environments (and becoming more

 The operating system is responsible for using hardware efficiently

 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.

 Shortest seek time first

 Provides a more uniform wait time than SCAN.

 SSTF is common and has a natural appeal

 New magnetic disk is a blank slate

 Spare sectors- the controller can be

 Swap-space — Virtual memory uses disk space as an extension of

 RAID – redundant arrays of inexpensive disks

 Improvement of reliability via redundancy.

 Several improvements in disk-use techniques involve the use of

 Disk striping uses a group of disks as one storage unit.

 RAID schemes improve performance and improve the reliability of

 Write-ahead log scheme requires stable storage.

 To implement stable storage:

 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-

 Most floppies hold about 1 MB; similar technology is used for

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

 Optical disks do not use magnetism; they employ special materials

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

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

 Major OS jobs are to manage physical devices and to present a

 For hard disks, the OS provides two abstraction:

 The issue of naming files on removable media is especially difficult

 A hierarchical storage system extends the storage hierarchy

 Two aspects of speed in tertiary storage are bandwidth and

 Bandwidth is measured in bytes per second.

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

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

 An optical cartridge is likely to be more reliable than a magnetic

 A head crash in a fixed hard disk generally destroys the data,

 Main memory is much more expensive than disk storage

 The cost per megabyte of hard disk storage is competitive with

 Tertiary storage gives a cost savings only when the number of

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