CS4411 Operating Systems Homework 3 Solutions (Storage System) – Spring 2019 1

CS4411 Operating Systems Homework 3 Solutions

Spring 2019

1. [10 points] Suppose a hard disk has an average access time of 8ms, a rotational speed of 7200 rpm, and 63
sectors per disk.
(a) Compute the average time to read a sector.
(b) Compute the average time to read 10 sectors if they are contiguous (on the same track).
(c) What is the average time if the 10 sectors are located randomly on the disk?
Answer: The average time to read a section Tsector is
Tsector = Ts + Tr + Tx

where Ts is the average seek time, Tr is the average rotational delay, and Tx is the time to transfer one sector.
The average seek time is given as 8 ms (i.e., Ts = 8 ms). The rotational delay Tr is the time for the disk to spin
one-half a rotation. The transfer time Tx is the time required to the disk to spin one sector, of 1/63 rotations.
Using the given parameters, this is
    
60000 1 60000
8ms + (0.5 revolutions) ms/rev. + revolutions ms/rev.
7200 63 7200

To read 10 contiguous sectors would take

    
60000 10 60000
8ms + (0.5 revolutions) ms/rev. + revolutions ms/rev.
7200 63 7200
and to read 10 randomly located sectors would take
     
60000 1 60000
10 8ms + (0.5 revolutions) ms/rev. + revolutions ms/rev.
7200 63 7200

2. [10 points] Suppose that a disk drive has 5000 cylinders, numbered 0 to 4999. The drive is currently serving a
request at cylinder 2150, and the previous request was at cylinder 1805. The queue of pending requests, in FIFO
order, is 2069, 1212, 2296, 2800, 544, 1618, 356, 1523, 4965, 3681. Starting from the current head position,
what is the total distance (in cylinders) that the disk arm moves to satisfy all the pending requests, for each of
the following disk scheduling algorithms:
(a) First-Come-First-Serve (FCFS)
(b) Shortest-Seek-Time-First (SSTF)
(c) SCAN
(d) C-SCAN
(e) LOOK
(f) C-LOOK
Answer: The following table shows the access order of tracks and the total number of cylinders crossed.

Method 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Total
FCFS 2150 2069 1212 2296 2800 544 1618 356 1523 4965 3681 13011
SSTF 2150 2069 2296 2800 3681 4965 1618 1523 1212 544 356 7586
SCAN 2150 2296 2800 3681 4965 4999 2069 1618 1523 1212 544 356 7492
C-SCAN 2150 2296 2800 3681 4965 4999 0 356 544 1212 1523 1618 2069 9917
LOOK 2150 2296 2800 3681 4965 2069 1618 1523 1212 544 356 7424
C-LOOK 2150 2296 2800 3681 4965 356 544 1212 1523 1618 2069 9137
CS4411 Operating Systems Homework 3 Solutions (Storage System) – Spring 2019 2

In SCAN and C-SCAN the 4999 indicates that the disk head has to moved to the last track 4999. In the C-SCAN,
the disk head only scan in one direction. As a result, after the desk heads visited the last track 4999 it has to be
moved back to the first track 0 and scan in the same direction.

3. [10 points] A file currently has 5 blocks, from block 0 to block 4. Assume that its FCB and directory are already
in memory. There are a few more assumptions as shown blow:
• In the contiguous allocation case, the directory entry has a start pointer and a length value.
• In the linked allocation, a directory entry has a start pointer and an end pointer.
• In the FAT allocation, the FAT table is in memory and a directory entry has a start pointer to the FAT table.
• In the case of the indexed allocation, the index block is in memory and is large enough for further expan-
sion.
How many disk I/O operations (i.e., reads and writes) are required for contiguous, linked, FAT, and indexed
(single-level) allocation strategies, if block 2 to be removed. Assume that the directory and index will not be
written back to disk after this insertion is done.
Answer:
• Contiguous Allocation: The contiguous allocation knows the location of the first block (i.e., block 0), and
can easily locate block 2. Because the allocation has to be contiguous, block 3 and block 4 have to be
moved one block forward. In this case, for each of block 3 and block 4, one read and one write are needed,
and four I/O operations are needed. If the directory has to be saved back to disk because the length has
changed, one more I/O operation is needed.
• Linked Allocation: To access block 2, the system has to (1) read in block 0 to obtain the address of block
1; (2) read block 1 to obtain the address of block 2; (3) read block 2 to obtain the address of block 3; and
(4) replace the address field in block 1 with the address of block 3, and write block 1 back to disk. This
is exactly the same as updating a link list. Therefore, we need 3 reads and 1 writes. no need to update
directory for this case.
• FAT: This only requires an update the pointer in FAT. One may have to write the portion of the FAT back
to disk, and this requires one more disk operation.
• Index Allocation: For the indexed allocation, because the index is already in memory, all block numbers
starting with block 3 in the index block are moved forward. In this case, no I/O operation is needed. If the
index block has to be written back to disk, one write is needed.
4. [10 points] Suppose a Unix inode has 10 direct disk block pointers, one single indirect block pointer, one double
indirect block pointer, and one triple indirect block pointer. For convenience, each index table has 256 = 28
entries and each block has 1K= 210 bytes. What is the maximum size of a Unix file?
Answer: Please refer to slide 21 of 10-Storage-System.pdf. Let us examine each of the four cases as follows:
• Direct Disk Block Pointer: There are 10 direct disk block pointers each of which points to a 210 byte
blocks. Therefore, this part supports a file of size 10 × 210 bytes of 10 × 1K = 10K bytes.
• Single Indirect Block Pointer: Because each index table has 256 = 28 entries and each block has 210
bytes, the total size is 28 × 210 = 218 bytes or 28 K bytes.
• Double Indirect Block Pointer: The first level has 28 entries of pointers, each of which points to an index
table of 28 block pointers. Therefore, there are 28 ×28 = 264 blocks, and the file size of this part is 264 ×210
bytes or 264 K bytes.
• Triple Indirect Block Pointer: Each of the second level indirect block is the same as the double indirect
block, and supports 264 K bytes. Because there are 28 indirect tables at the second level, the total number
of block pointers is 28 × 264 = 2512 K.
In summary, the maximum file size is 10K + 28 K + 264 K + 2512 K = 10 + 28 + 264 + 2512 K.