Organization and structure

of disk drives

Rahul Raman
Asst. Professor (Senior)
Department of Analytics
School of Computer Science and Engineering
VIT University Vellore, India
Types of External Memory
 Magnetic Disk
 RAID
 Removable
 Optical
 CD-ROM
 CD-Recordable (CD-R)
 CD-R/W
 DVD
 Magnetic Tape
Magnetic Disk
 A disk is a circular platter constructed of non magnetic material substrate
 Disk substrate coated with magnetisable material (iron oxide…rust)
 Substrate used to be aluminium or aluminium alloy material.
 Now glass is used as substrate
 Benefits of using glass as substrate
 Improved surface uniformity
 Increases reliability
 Reduction in surface defects
 Reduced read/write errors
 Better stiffness
 Better shock/damage resistance
Read and Write Mechanisms
 Recording & retrieval via conductive coil called a head
 May be single read/write head or separate ones
 During read/write, head is stationary, platter rotates
 Write
 Current through coil produces magnetic field
 Pulses sent to head
 Magnetic pattern recorded on surface below
 Read (traditional)
 Magnetic field moving relative to coil produces current
 Coil is the same for read and write
 Read (contemporary)
 Separate read head, close to write head
 The head consists of partially shielded magneto resistive (MR) sensor
 The MR material has an electrical resistance depends on direction of magnetization medium moving
under it
 MR design allows high frequency operation which equates to greater storage density and speed
Inductive Write MR Read
Data Organization and Formatting
 Concentric rings or tracks
 Gaps between tracks
 Reduce gap to increase capacity
 Same number of bits per track (variable packing density)
 Constant angular velocity
 Tracks divided into sectors
 Minimum block size is one sector
 May have more than one sector per block
Disk Data Layout
Disk Velocity
 Bit near centre of rotating disk passes fixed point slower than bit on outside of disk
 Increase spacing between bits in different tracks
 Rotate disk at constant angular velocity (CAV)
 Gives pie shaped sectors and concentric tracks
 Individual tracks and sectors addressable
 Move head to given track and wait for given sector
 Waste of space on outer tracks
 Lower data density
 Can use zones to increase capacity
 Each zone has fixed bits per track
 More complex circuitry
Disk Layout Methods Diagram
Multiple Zone Recording
 To increase density, modern hard disk systems use a technique
Multiple Zone Recording
 The surface is divided into number of concentric zone .
 Within a zone a number, the number of bit /track is constant.
 Zones farther from the centre contain more sectors than zones
closer to the centre.
 Greater overall storage capacity at the expense of somewhat more
complex circuitry.
Finding Sectors
 Must be able to identify start of track and sector
 Disk Format
 Additional information not available to user
 Marks tracks and sectors
Characteristics
 Fixed (rare) or movable head
 Removable or fixed
 Single or double (usually) sided
 Single or multiple platter
 Head mechanism
 Contact (Floppy)
 Fixed gap
 Flying (Winchester)
Fixed/Movable Head Disk
 Fixed head
 One read write head per track
 Heads mounted on fixed ridged arm
 Movable head
 One read write head per side
 Mounted on a movable arm
Removable or Not
 Removable disk
 Can be removed from drive and replaced with another disk
 Provides unlimited storage capacity
 Easy data transfer between systems
 Nonremovable disk
 Permanently mounted in the drive
Multiple Platter
 One head per side
 Heads are joined and aligned
 Aligned tracks on each platter form cylinders
 Data is striped by cylinder
 reduces head movement
 Increases speed (transfer rate)
Physical Characteristics of Disk
Systems
Multiple Platters
Tracks and Cylinders
Speed
 Seek time
 Moving head to correct track
 (Rotational) latency
 Waiting for data to rotate under head
 Access time = Seek + Latency
 Transfer rate
The key components that are typically added
together to obtain the access time are:
• Seek time
• Rotational latency
• Command processing time
• Settle time

Seek Time: With rotating drives, the seek time measures the time it takes the
head assembly on the actuator arm to travel to the track of the disk where the
data will be read or written.

Short stroking is a term used in enterprise storage environments to describe an

HDD that is purposely restricted in total capacity so that the actuator only has to
move the heads across a smaller number of total tracks.This limits the
maximum distance the heads can be from any point on the drive thereby
reducing its average seek time, but also restricts the total capacity of the drive.
Rotational latency (sometimes called rotational delay or just latency) is the
delay waiting for the rotation of the disk to bring the required disk sector under
the read-write head.[22] It depends on the rotational speed of a disk (or spindle
motor), measured in revolutions per minute (RPM).[7][23] For most magnetic
media-based drives, the average rotational latency is typically based on the
empirical relation that the average latency in milliseconds for such a drive is
one-half the rotational period.

Media rate

Rate at which the drive can read bits from the surface of the media.

Sector overhead time

Additional time (bytes between sectors) needed for control structures and other
information necessary to manage the drive, locate and validate data and
perform other support functions.
Head switch time
Additional time required to electrically switch from one head to another, re-
align the head with the track and begin reading; only applies to multi-head
drive and is about 1 to 2 ms.

Cylinder switch time

Additional time required to move to the first track of the next cylinder and
begin reading; the name cylinder is used because typically all the tracks of a
drive with more than one head or data surface are read before moving the
actuator. This time is typically about twice the track-to-track seek time.
What is rotational latency in the context of disk access time? Assume
that the disk rotates at 6000 rpm; each track of the disk has 16 sectors;
data transfer rate of the disk is 64 MB/second; and average seek time of
disk is10 millisecond. Calculate the average access time for the disk.
Disk Rotation Speed = 6000 rpm
Sectors per Track = 16 sectors
Data transfer rate = 64 MB/second
Average seek time = 10 millisecond

Rotational latency = Average seek time + Average Rotational delay +

Transfer time + Controller Overheads
Average seek time = 10 millisecond (given)

Calculate
Average Rotational delay = ½ Time of Rotation in milliseconds

Average Rotational delay = ½ * (60/6000) *1000 millisecond

= ½ * 10 millisecond
= 5 millisecond
Calculate
Transfer time = Block size / Transfer rate
Block size =? (Not Mentioned)
Assume = 1 KB per 1 sector
So 16 sector = 16 KB
Transfer time = (16 KB / 64 MB/sec)
= (16 / 64) millisecond
= 0.25 millisecond

Note:- Controller Overheads (optional) not using it For Now.

Rotational latency = Average seek time + Average Rotational delay +

Transfer time
Rotational latency = 10 millisecond + 5 millisecond + 0.25 millisecond
= 10 + 5 + 0.25 millisecond
= 15.25 millisecond.
Consider a typical disk that rotates at 15000 rotations per minute (RPM)
and has a transfer rate of 50 × 106bytes/sec. If the average seek time of
the disk is twice the average rotational delay and the controller’s transfer
time is 10 times the disk transfer time, the average time (in milliseconds) to
read or write a 512 byte sector of the disk is _____________
Disk latency = Seek Time + Rotation Time + Transfer Time +
Controller Overhead
Seek Time? Depends no. tracks the arm moves and seek speed of disk
Rotation Time? depends on rotational speed and how far the sector
is from the head
Transfer Time? depends on data rate (bandwidth) of disk (bit
density) and the size of request
Disk latency = Seek Time + Rotation Time + Transfer Time +
Controller Overhead
Average Rotational Time = (0.5)/(15000 / 60) = 2 miliseconds
[On average half rotation is made]
It is given that the average seek time is twice the average
rotational delay
So Avg. Seek Time = 2 * 2 = 4 miliseconds.
Transfer Time = 512 / (50 × 106 bytes/sec) = 10.24 microseconds
Given that controller time is 10 times the average transfer time
Controller Overhead = 10 * 10.24 microseconds = 0.1 miliseconds
Disk latency = Seek Time + Rotation Time + Transfer Time +
Controller Overhead = 4 + 2 + 10.24 * 10-3 + 0.1 miliseconds = 6.1
miliseconds
 What exactly is RAID?
• Provides a way of storing the same data in different places
(thus, redundantly) on multiple hard disks.
• By placing data on multiple disks, input/output (I/O) operations
can overlap in a balanced way, improving performance.
• Since multiple disks increase the mean time between failures,
storing data redundantly also increases fault tolerance.
 RAID
• Redundant Array of Independent Disks
• Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
• 6 levels in common use
• Not a hierarchy
• Set of physical disks viewed as single
logical drive by O/S
• Data distributed across physical drives
• Can use redundant capacity to store parity
information
 RAID 0
• No redundancy
• Data striped across all disks
• Round Robin striping
• 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
Application: Supercomputers:
• Adv:
performance and capacity are
• High I/O request rate
primary concern and low cost is
• High data transfer
capacity more important than improved
reliability
 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
• Expensive
 RAID 2
• Disks are synchronized
• Very small stripes
– Often single byte/word
• Error correction calculated
across corresponding bits
on disks
• Multiple parity disks store
Hamming code error
correction in
corresponding positions
• Lots of redundancy
– Expensive
– Not used
 RAID 3
• Similar to RAID 2
• Only one redundant
disk, no matter how
large the array
• Simple parity bit for
each set of
corresponding bits
• Data on failed drive can
be reconstructed from
surviving data and
parity info
• Very high transfer rates
 RAID 4
• Each disk operates
independently
• Good for high I/O
request rate
• Large stripes
• Bit by bit parity
calculated across
stripes on each disk
• Parity stored on parity
disk
 RAID 5
• Like RAID 4
• Parity striped across all
disks
• Round robin allocation for
parity stripe
• Avoids RAID 4 bottleneck
at parity disk
• Commonly used in network
servers
 RAID 6
• Two parity calculations
• Stored in separate blocks
on different disks
• User requirement of N
disks needs N+2
• High data availability
– Three disks need to
fail for data loss
– Significant write
penalty
RAID Levels
 References
• William Stallings “Computer Organization
and architecture”, Prentice Hall, 7th edition,
2006.