Storing Data: Disks and Files

Chapter 7

“Yea, from the table of my memory

I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records.”
-- Shakespeare, Hamlet

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 Disks and Files

 DBMS stores information on (“hard”) disks.

 This has major implications for DBMS design!
 READ: transfer data from disk to main memory (RAM).
 WRITE: transfer data from RAM to disk.
 Both are high-cost operations, relative to in-memory
operations, so must be planned carefully!

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 Why Not Store Everything in Main Memory?

 Costs too much. $10 will buy you either

128MB of RAM or 7.5GB of disk today.
 Main memory is volatile. We want data to be
saved between runs. (Obviously!)
 Typical storage hierarchy:
 Main memory (RAM) for currently used data.
 Disk for the main database (secondary storage).
 Tapes for archiving older versions of the data
(tertiary storage).

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 Disks
 Secondary storage device of choice.
 Main advantage over tapes: random access vs.
sequential.
 Data is stored and retrieved in units called
disk blocks or pages.
 Unlike RAM, time to retrieve a disk page
varies depending upon location on disk.
 Therefore, relative placement of pages on disk has
major impact on DBMS performance!

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 Components of a Disk Spindle
Tracks
Disk head
 The platters spin (say, 90rps).
 The arm assembly is Sector

moved in or out to position

a head on a desired track.
Tracks under heads make
a cylinder (imaginary!). Platters
Arm movement
 Only one head
reads/writes at any
one time.
Arm assembly
 Block size is a multiple
of sector size (which is fixed).

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 Accessing a Disk Page
 Time to access (read/write) a disk block:
 seek time (moving arms to position disk head on track)
 rotational delay (waiting for block to rotate under head)
 transfer time (actually moving data to/from disk surface)
 Seek time and rotational delay dominate.
 Seek time varies from about 1 to 20msec
 Rotational delay varies from 0 to 10msec
 Transfer rate is about 1msec per 4KB page
 Key to lower I/O cost: reduce seek/rotation
delays!
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 Arranging Pages on Disk
 `Next’ block concept:
 blocks on same track, followed by
 blocks on same cylinder, followed by
 blocks on adjacent cylinder
 Blocks in a file should be arranged
sequentially on disk (by `next’), to minimize
seek and rotational delay.
 For a sequential scan, pre-fetching several
pages at a time is a big win!

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 RAID

 Disk Array: Arrangement of several disks that

gives abstraction of a single, large disk.
 Goals: Increase performance and reliability.
 Two main techniques:
 Data striping: Data is partitioned; size of a
partition is called the striping unit. Partitions are
distributed over several disks.
 Redundancy: More disks => more failures.
Redundant information allows reconstruction of
data if a disk fails.

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 RAID Levels

 Level 0: No redundancy. Striped.

 Level 1: Mirrored (two identical copies)
 Not striped.
 Each disk has a mirror image (check disk)
 Parallel reads, a write involves two disks.
 Maximum transfer rate = transfer rate of one disk
 Level 0+1: Striping and Mirroring
 Parallel reads, a write involves two disks.
 Maximum transfer rate = aggregate bandwidth

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 RAID Levels (Contd.)
 Level 2: Error-Correcting Codes
 striping unit is a single bit
 redundancy scheme is Hamming Code
 number of check disk grows logarithmically with the
number of data disks
 Effective Space Utilization increases with the number
of disks
• 4 data disks, 3 check disks = 57%
• 10 data disks, 4 check disks = 71%
• 25 data disks, 5 check disks = 83%

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 RAID Levels (Contd.)
 Level 3: Bit-Interleaved Parity
 Striping Unit: One bit. One check disk.
 Each read and write request involves all disks; disk
array can process one request at a time.
 Level 4: Block-Interleaved Parity
 Striping Unit: One disk block. One check disk.
 Parallel reads possible for small requests, large
requests can utilize full bandwidth
 Writes involve modified block and check disk
 Level 5: Block-Interleaved Distributed Parity
 Similar to RAID Level 4, but parity blocks are
distributed over all disks
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 Disk Space Management

 Lowest layer of DBMS software manages space

on disk.
 Higher levels call upon this layer to:
 allocate/de-allocate a page
 read/write a page
 Request for a sequence of pages must be satisfied
by allocating the pages sequentially on disk!
 Higher levels don’t need to know how this is done,
or how free space is managed.

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 Buffer Management in a DBMS
Page Requests from Higher Levels

BUFFER POOL

disk page

free frame

MAIN MEMORY

DISK choice of frame dictated

DB by replacement policy

 Data must be in RAM for DBMS to operate on it!

 Table of <frame#, pageid> pairs is maintained.
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 When a Page is Requested ...

 If requested page is not in pool:

 Choose a frame for replacement
 If frame is dirty, write it to disk
 Read requested page into chosen frame
 Pin the page and return its address.

 If requests can be predicted (e.g., sequential scans)

pages can be pre-fetched several pages at a time!

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 More on Buffer Management

 Requestor of page must unpin it, and indicate

whether page has been modified:
 dirty bit is used for this.
 Page in pool may be requested many times,
 a pin count is used. A page is a candidate for
replacement iff pin count = 0.
 CC & recovery may entail additional I/O
when a frame is chosen for replacement.
(Write-Ahead Log protocol; more later.)

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 Buffer Replacement Policy

 Frame is chosen for replacement by a

replacement policy:
 Least-recently-used (LRU), Clock, MRU etc.
 Policy can have big impact on # of I/O’s;
depends on the access pattern.
 Sequential flooding: Nasty situation caused by
LRU + repeated sequential scans.
 # buffer frames < # pages in file means each page
request causes an I/O. MRU much better in this
situation (but not in all situations, of course).
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 DBMS vs. OS File System
OS does disk space & buffer mgmt: why not let
OS manage these tasks?

 Differences in OS support: portability issues

 Some limitations, e.g., files can’t span disks.
 Buffer management in DBMS requires ability to:
 pin a page in buffer pool, force a page to disk
(important for implementing CC & recovery),
 adjust replacement policy, and pre-fetch pages based
on access patterns in typical DB operations.

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 Record Formats: Fixed Length

F1 F2 F3 F4

L1 L2 L3 L4

Base address (B) Address = B+L1+L2

 Information about field types same for all

records in a file; stored in system catalogs.
 Finding i’th field requires scan of record.

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 Record Formats: Variable Length
 Two alternative formats (# fields is fixed):
F1 F2 F3 F4

4 $ $ $ $
Fields Delimited by Special Symbols
Field
Count
F1 F2 F3 F4

Array of Field Offsets

 Second offers direct access to i’th field, efficient storage
of nulls (special don’t know value); small directory overhead.
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 Page Formats: Fixed Length Records
Slot 1 Slot 1
Slot 2 Slot 2
Free
... Space
...
Slot N Slot N

Slot M
N 1 . . . 0 1 1M
number M ... 3 2 1 number
PACKED of records UNPACKED, BITMAP of slots

 Record id = <page id, slot #>. In first

alternative, moving records for free space
management changes rid; may not be acceptable.
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 Page Formats: Variable Length Records
Rid = (i,N)
Page i

Rid = (i,2)

Rid = (i,1)

20 16 24 N Pointer
N ... 2 1 # slots to start
of free
space
SLOT DIRECTORY

 Can move records on page without changing rid;

so, attractive for fixed-length records too.
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 Files of Records

 Page or block is OK when doing I/O, but

higher levels of DBMS operate on records, and
files of records.
 FILE: A collection of pages, each containing a
collection of records. Must support:
 insert/delete/modify record
 read a particular record (specified using record id)
 scan all records (possibly with some conditions on
the records to be retrieved)

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 Unordered (Heap) Files
 Simplest file structure contains records in no
particular order.
 As file grows and shrinks, disk pages are
allocated and de-allocated.
 To support record level operations, we must:
 keep track of the pages in a file
 keep track of free space on pages
 keep track of the records on a page
 There are many alternatives for keeping track
of this.
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 Heap File Implemented as a List

Data Data Data Full Pages

Page Page Page
Header
Page
Data Data Data
Pages with
Page Page Page
Free Space

 The header page id and Heap file name must

be stored someplace.
 Each page contains 2 `pointers’ plus data.
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 Heap File Using a Page Directory
Data
Header Page 1
Page
Data
Page 2

Data
DIRECTORY Page N

 The entry for a page can include the number

of free bytes on the page.
 The directory is a collection of pages; linked
list implementation is just one alternative.
 Much smaller than linked list of all HF pages!
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 System Catalogs
 For each index:
 structure (e.g., B+ tree) and search key fields
 For each relation:
 name, file name, file structure (e.g., Heap file)
 attribute name and type, for each attribute
 index name, for each index
 integrity constraints
 For each view:
 view name and definition

 Catalogs are themselves stored as relations!

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 Attr_Cat(attr_name, rel_name, type, position)

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 Summary

 Disks provide cheap, non-volatile storage.

 Random access, but cost depends on location of page
on disk; important to arrange data sequentially to
minimize seek and rotation delays.
 Buffer manager brings pages into RAM.
 Page stays in RAM until released by requestor.
 Written to disk when frame chosen for replacement
(which is sometime after requestor releases the page).
 Choice of frame to replace based on replacement policy.
 Tries to pre-fetch several pages at a time.

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 Summary (Contd.)
 DBMS vs. OS File Support
 DBMS needs features not found in many OS’s, e.g.,
forcing a page to disk, controlling the order of page
writes to disk, files spanning disks, ability to
control pre-fetching and page replacement policy
based on predictable access patterns, etc.
 Variable length record format with field offset
directory offers support for direct access to
i’th field and null values.
 Slotted page format supports variable length
records and allows records to move on page.
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 Summary (Contd.)

 File layer keeps track of pages in a file, and

supports abstraction of a collection of records.
 Pages with free space identified using linked list
or directory structure (similar to how pages in file
are kept track of).
 Indexes support efficient retrieval of records
based on the values in some fields.
 Catalog relations store information about
relations, indexes and views. (Information that
is common to all records in a given collection.)
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