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Database Management Systems: BITS Pilani

This document discusses database management systems and disk storage. It describes how data is stored on magnetic disks in tracks and sectors. Files contain records that are stored in disk blocks. Records can be fixed-length or variable-length, and files can have ordered or unordered organization. Common file operations like open, read, insert and delete are also outlined.

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172 views14 pages

Database Management Systems: BITS Pilani

This document discusses database management systems and disk storage. It describes how data is stored on magnetic disks in tracks and sectors. Files contain records that are stored in disk blocks. Records can be fixed-length or variable-length, and files can have ordered or unordered organization. Common file operations like open, read, insert and delete are also outlined.

Uploaded by

Anjali Rana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Database Management Systems

BITS Pilani Dr.R.Gururaj


CS&IS Dept.
Hyderabad Campus
Lecture Session-11
Data Storage

Content

 Disk pack features


 Records and Files
 File operations
 Ordered and unordered features

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus


Disk Storage

 Disk is the preferred secondary storage device


for high storage capacity and low cost.
 Data stored as magnetized areas on magnetic
disk surfaces.
 A disk pack contains several magnetic disks
connected to a rotating spindle.
 Disks are divided into concentric circular
tracks on each disk surface.
 Track capacities vary typically from 4 to 50 Kbytes
or more

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus


BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
 A track is divided into smaller blocks or sectors.

 The division of a track into sectors is hard-coded on the disk


surface and cannot be changed.

 A track is divided into blocks.


1. The block size B is fixed for each system.
Typical block sizes range from B=512 bytes to B=4096 bytes.
2. Whole blocks are transferred between disk and main memory
for processing.

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus


BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
 A read-write head moves to the track that contains the block to be
transferred.
Disk rotation moves the block under the read-write head for reading or
writing.
 A physical disk block (hardware) address consists of:
 a cylinder number (imaginary collection of tracks of same radius from
all recorded surfaces)
 the track number or surface number (within the cylinder)
 and block number (within track).
 Reading or writing a disk block is time consuming because of the seek time
s (time to position the head on required track)
3-7msec and rotational delay (latency) – time to position at the
beginning of the required block rd.
3-4 msec with 15000rpm

Block transfer time. Smaller than above two.

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus


Files and Records

• A file is a sequence of records, where each record is a


collection of data values (or data items).
• A file descriptor (or file header) includes information that
describes the file, such as the field names and their data types,
and the addresses of the file blocks on disk.
• Records are stored on disk blocks.
• The blocking factor (bfr) for a file is the (average) number of
file records stored in a disk block.
• A file can have fixed-length records or variable-length records.

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus


• File records can be unspanned or spanned
– Unspanned: no record can span two blocks
– Spanned: a record can be stored in more than one block
• The physical disk blocks that are allocated to hold the records
of a file can be contiguous, linked.
• In a file of fixed-length records, all records have the same
format. Usually, unspanned blocking is used with such files.
• Files of variable-length records require additional information
to be stored in each record, such as separator characters and
field types.
– Usually spanned blocking is used with such files.

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus


File operations

Typical file operations include:


 OPEN: Readies the file for access, and associates a pointer that will refer to a
current file record at each point in time.
 FIND: Searches for the first file record that satisfies a certain condition, and makes it
the current file record.
 FINDNEXT: Searches for the next file record (from the current record) that satisfies
a certain condition, and makes it the current file record.
 READ: Reads the current file record into a program variable.
 INSERT: Inserts a new record into the file & makes it the current file record.
 DELETE: Removes the current file record from the file, usually by marking the record
to indicate that it is no longer valid.
 MODIFY: Changes the values of some fields of the current file record.
 CLOSE: Terminates access to the file.
 REORGANIZE: Reorganizes the file records.
For example, the records marked deleted are physically removed from the file or a new
organization of the file records is created.
 READ_ORDERED: Read the file blocks in order of a specific field of the file.

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus


Unordered Files

Also called a heap or a pile file.


New records are inserted at the end of the file.
A linear search through the file records is necessary to
search for a record.
– This requires reading and searching half the file
blocks on the average, and is hence quite
expensive.
Record insertion is quite efficient.
Reading the records in order of a particular field
requires sorting the file records.
BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
Ordered Files

• Also called a sequential file.


• File records are kept sorted by the values of an ordering field.
• Insertion is expensive: records must be inserted in the correct
order.
A binary search can be used to search for a record on its
ordering field value.
– This requires reading and searching log2 of the file blocks
on the average, an improvement over linear search.
• Reading the records in order of the ordering field is quite
efficient.

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus


BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
Summary
 What is Disk storage
 Disk characteristics
 Disk pack structure
 Files and Records
 Ordered and unordered files

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus

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