Hard drives, floppy drives CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW Tape drives Network drives Direct access vs. Sequential access Rotation vs. Linear 2 Magnetic Disks A magnetic substance is coated on a round surface The magnetic substance can be polarized in one of two directions with an electromagnet (writing data) The electromagnet can also sense the direction of magnetic polarization (reading data) Similar to a read/write head on a tape recorder (except the information is digital rather than analogue) 3 Hard Disks: Example Top view of a 36 GB, 10,000 RPM, IBM SCSI server hard disk, with its top cover removed, 10 stacked platters (The IBM Ultrastar 36ZX) 4 Hard Disk Layout Platter Track Cylinder Drive motor Head motor Head, on moving arm Block Sector Track Head Head assembly Disk Data Layout Multiple Platters 7 Hard Disk: Terminology Platter A round surface the disk containing a magnetic coating Track A circle on the disk surface on which data are contained Head A transducer attached to an arm for writing/reading data to/from the disk surface Head assembly A mechanical unit holding the heads and arms All the head/arm units move together, via the head assembly Cylinder A set of tracks simultaneously accessible from the heads on the head assembly 8 Hard Disk: Terminology Drive motor The motor that rotates the platters Typically a DC motor (DC = direct current) The disk rotates at a fixed speed (e.g., 3600 rpm, revolutions per minute) Head motion A mechanism is required to move the head assembly in/out Two possibilities: A stepper motor (digital, head moves in steps, no feedback) A servo motor (analogue, very precision positioning, but requires feedback)
9 Hard Disks The platter is hard (e.g., aluminum) Most hard disk drives contain more than one platter On most hard disk drives, the disks are fixed (i.e., not removable) On some hard disk drives, the disks are in a removable pack (hence, disk pack) Typical speed of rotation: 3600, 5400, 7200 rpm (rpm = revolutions per minute) Capacities: 5 MB to 1+ TB (terabyte = 2 40
bytes)
10 Locating a Block of Data Seek Time Latency Time Transfer Rate Desired track Seek Head Transfer Latency Note: Access time = seek time + latency Speed Seek time Moving head to correct track (Rotational) latency Waiting for data to rotate under head Access time = Seek + Latency Transfer rate Timing of Disk I/O Transfer 13 Hard Disk: Terminology Seek time The time for the head to move to the correct track Specified as an average for all tracks on the disk surface Latency time The time for the correct block to arrive at the head once the head is positioned at the correct track Specified as an average, in other words, the period of rotation Also called rotational delay
14 Disk Access Times Avg. Seek time average time to move from one track to another Avg. Latency time average time to rotate to the beginning of the sector Avg. Latency time = * 1/rotational speed Total Time to retrieve a disk block Avg. seek time + avg. latency time + avg. transfer time
15 Latency Example A hard disk rotates at 3600 rpm What is the average latency? Period of rotation = (1 / 3600) minutes = (1 / 3600) 60 seconds = 0.01667 s = 16.67 ms
Average latency = 16.67 / 2 ms = 8.33 ms 16 Factors Determining Transfer Rate Transfer rate can be determined, given Rotational speed of the disk platters Number of sectors per track Number of bytes per sector
17 Factors Determining Disk Capacity Disk Capacity can be determined, given No of Surfaces No of Tracks per Surface No of Sectors per Track Sector Size
Consider Magnetic disk with 8 surfaces, 512 tracks per surface and 64 sectors per track Sector size is 1kB. What is disk capacity Ans:256MB
18 Transfer Rate: Example Q: Determine the transfer rate, in Mbytes/s, for a hard disk drive, given Rotational speed = 7200 rpm Sectors per track = 30 Data per sector = 512 bytes = 0.5 Kbytes A: Transfer rate = 7200 x 30 = 216,000 sectors/min = 216,000 x 0.5 = 108,000 Kbytes/min = 108,000 / 60 = 1,800 Kbytes/s = 1,800 / 2 10 = 1.76 Mbytes/s 19 Exercise - Transfer Rate Q: Determine the transfer rate, in Mbytes/s, for a hard disk drive, given Rotational speed = 7000 rpm Sectors per track = 32 Data per sector = 1024 bytes
20 Exercise - Transfer Rate Q: Determine the transfer rate, in Mbytes/s, for a hard disk drive, given Rotational speed = 7000 rpm Sectors per track = 32 Data per sector = 1024 bytes = 1 Kb A: Transfer rate = 7000 x 32 = 224,000 sectors/min = 224,000 x 1 = 224,000 Kbytes/min = 224,000 / 60 = 3,733 Kbytes/s = 3,733 / 2 10 = 3.65 Mbytes/s Answer 21 R.A.I.D. = Redundant array of inexpensive disks
A category of disk drive that employs two or more drives in combination for fault tolerance and performance Frequently used on servers, but not generally used on PCs There are a number of different R.A.I.D. levels (next slide)
RAID 0 No redundancy Data striped across all disks Increase speed Multiple data requests probably not on same disk Disks seek in parallel A set of data is likely to be striped across multiple disks
RAID 1 Mirrored Disks Data is striped across disks 2 copies of each stripe on separate disks Read from either Write to both Recovery is simple Swap faulty disk & re-mirror No down time Expensive 24 R.A.I.D. Levels Level 3 Same as level 0, but also reserves one dedicated disk for error correction data Good performance, and some level of fault tolerance
A Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) Is A Thin, Flat Electronic Visual Display That Uses The Light Modulating Properties of Liquid Crystals (LCS) - Lcs Do Not Emit Light Directly