WOLKITE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF COMPUTING & INFORMATICS

Department of Computer Science

CH-FIVE: Input/Output Device Management

1 I/O MNGT BERIHUN G. MSc In CS[AAU]

 Contents
1. I/O Device
2. Devices controller
3. Memory-mapped I/O
4. Direct memory access(DMA)
5. Interrupt revisited
6. Goals of I/O and issues of software
7. I/O operation
8. I/O software layers
9. Disks

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 1. I/O devices
o Concerns with the way data are handled by the I/O
device.
o There are two types of I/O devices blocked and
character.
 Block devices
– stores information in Fixed-size blocks, each one with
its own address.
– Common block size range from 512bytes to
32,768bytes.
– All transfers are in units of one or more entire
(consecutive) blocks.
– The essential property of a block device is that it is
possible to read or write each block independently of
all the other ones.
• Example: Hard disks, CO-ROMs,
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and USB sticks. 3
 I/O devices(can't…)
 Character devices
– delivers or accepts stream of character, without
regard to any block structure.
– It is not addressable and does not have any seek
operation.
o Example: Printers, network interfaces, mice (for
pointing),
o most other devices that are not disk-like can be seen as
character devices.
o Some devices just do not fit in to both above
classification.
o Clocks, for example, are not block addressable, Nor do
they generate or accept character streams.
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 2. Device controller
 Is a collection of electronics that can operate a port,
bus, or devices
 For example, the disk controller’s job is to convert the
serial bit stream into a block of bytes and perform any
error correction necessary.
 controller has a few registers that are used for
communicating with the CPU.
 By writing into these registers, the operating system
can command the device to deliver data, accept data,
switch itself on or off, or otherwise perform some
action.
 By reading from these registers, the operating system
can learn what the device's state is, whether it is
prepared to accept a newI/Ocommand,
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and so on. 5
 3. Memory-mapped I/O
 How does the CPU communicate with controllers to
accomplish I/O transfer?
 Two alternatives exist.
1. Use of special I/O instruction( IN and OUT):
Each register is assigned an I/O port number, an 8- or 16-bit
integer.
The set of all the I/O ports form the I/O port space
protected ordinary user programs cannot access it (only the
operating system can).
Example:
₋ I N REG, PORT : the CPU can read in control register PORT and store
the result in CPU register REG.
₋ OUT PORT,REG : the CPU can write the contents of REG to a control
register.
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 Memory-mapped I/O(con’t….)
2. Mapping controller register to memory
space(memory-mapped I/O):
• Each register is assigned a unique memory address to
which no memory is assigned.
• CPU executes I/O requests using the standard data
transferring instruction to read and write controller
registers.

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 4. Direct memory access(DMA)
o Request data from an I/O controller one byte at a
time wastes the CPU's time.
o so a different scheme, called DMA (Direct Memory
Access) chip that can control the flow of bits
between memory and some controller without
constant CPU intervention.
o The CPU sets up the DMA chip, telling it how many
bytes to transfer, the device and memory addresses
involved, and the direction, and lets it go.
o When the DMA chip is done, it causes an interrupt.

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 5. Interrupt revisited
o When an i/o device has finished the work given to it, it
causes an interrupt
• lt does this by asserting a signal on a bus line that it has
been assigned.
• This signal is detected by the interrupt controller chip
on the parent board, which then decides what to do.
• If no other interrupts are pending, the interrupt
controller processes the interrupt immediately.
• If another one is in progress, or another device has
made a simultaneous request on a higher-priority
interrupt request line on the bus, the device is just
ignored for the moment.
• In this case it continues to assert an interrupt signal on
the bus until it is servicedI/O by
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the CPU. 9
 Interrupt revisited (cont….)
o To handle the interrupt:
– The controller puts a number on the address lines specifying
which device wants attention and asserts a signal to
interrupt the CPU.
– New program counter is fetched from tabled
called interrupt vector using the number on the
address lines is used as an index into this table.
– Interrupt service procedure is start running and
finally acknowledges the interrupt by writing a
certain value to one of the interrupt controller's
I/0 ports.

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 6. Goals and issues of i/o software
o Device Independence:
– It should be possible to write programs that can access any
i/o device without having to specify the device in advance.
– It is up to the operating system to take care of the problems
caused by the fact that these devices are really different.
o Uniform Naming:
₋ The name of a file or a device should simply be a string or an
integer and not dependent on the device in any way.
o Error handling:
- In general, errors should be handled as close to the
hardware as possible (at the device controller level).
- Many errors are transient, such as read errors caused by
specks of dust on the read head, and will go away if the
operations are repeated.

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 Goals and issues of i/o software
o TransferThere are two types of transfer modes :
 Synchronous (Blocking) and Asynchronous (interrupt–
driven).
– synchronous transfer: the program requesting I/O transfer
will be suspended until the transfer is completed.
– Asynchronous transfer: the CPU starts the transfer and
goes off to do something until the interrupt that shows the
completion of the transfer arrives.

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 Goals and issues of i/o software
o Device types There are two device types
 Sharable (such as a disk)
 Used by many users at the same time.
 No problems are caused by multiple users having open files
on the same disk at the same time.
 Dedicated (tape drives)
 Have to be dedicated to a single user until that user is
finished.
 Having two or more users writing blocks intermixed at
random to the same tape will definitely not work.

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 7. I/O Operation
 There are three fundamentally different ways that
I/0 can be performed.
1. programmed I/O
2. interrupt-driven I/O
3. I/O using DMA

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 Programmed I/O
 is a method in which the main CPU inputs or outputs
each byte or word and sits in a tight loop waiting until
it can get or send the next one.
 The CPU continuously polls the device to see if it is
ready or not. This behavior is often called polling or
busy waiting.
 Programmed I/0 is simple but has the disadvantage
of tying up the CPU full time until all the I/0 is done.

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 Interrupt-driven I/O
o is a method in which the CPU starts an I/O transfer
for a character or word and goes off to do something
else until an interrupt arrives signaling completion of
the I/O.
o The advantage of interrupt-driven I/O allows the
CPU to do something else while waiting for the device
to become ready for the next work.
o The disadvantage of interrupt-driven I/0 is that an
interrupt occurs on every character or word which
Interrupts take time, which wastes a certain amount
of CPU time.

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 Direct memory access(DMA)
o the way in which a separate chip manages the complete
transfer of a block of data, given an interrupt only when the
entire block has been transferred.
o DMA is programmed I/O, only with the DMA controller doing
all the work, instead of the main CPU.
o This strategy requires special hardware (the DMA
controller) but frees up the CPU during the I/O to do other
work.
o The big win with DMA is reducing the number of
interrupts from one per character to one per buffer.
o the DMA controller is usually much slower than the main
CPU. If the DMA controller is not capable of driving the
device at full speed, or the CPU usually has nothing to do
anyway while waiting for the DMA interrupt, then interrupt-
driven I/0 or even programmed I/0 may be better.
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Direct memory access(DMA)

Operation of DMA transfer

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 8. I/0 software layers
o I/0 software is typically organized in four layers.
o Each layer has a well-defined function to perform
and a well-defined interface to the adjacent layers.
o The functionality and interfaces differ from system
to system.

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 Interrupt handlers
o Interrupts are unpleasant facts of program or process
and cannot be avoided.
o They should be hidden away deep in the bowels of the
operating system.
o The best way to hide them is to have driver starting an
I/O operation block until the I/O has completed and
the interrupt occurs.
o When the interrupt happens, the interrupt procedure
does whatever it has to in order to handle the
interrupt. Then unblock the driver that started it.

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 Device driver
o All devices – Dependent code goes in the device driver.
o Each device driver handles one device type, or at most,
one class of closely related devices.
o the job of a device driver is to accept requests form the
device-independent software above it and sees to it that
the request is executed.
o Steps in carrying out I/O requests
– Translate it from abstract to concrete terms.
– Write into the controller’s device registers.
– The device driver blocks itself until interrupt comes.
– The blocked driver will be awakened by the interrupt.
– Device driver checks for errors.
– If everything is all right, the driver may have data to pass to the
device independent software.
– If nothing is queued, the driver blocks waiting for the next
request. I/O MNGT 21
 Device independent I/O software
o It is large fraction of I/O software.
o perform the I/0 functions that are common to all devices
and to provide a uniform interface to the user-level
software.
o Functions of the device-independent I/O software:
 Uniform interfacing for device drivers – Perform I/O
function common to all drives.
 Device Naming – Responsible for mapping symbolic
devices names onto the proper driver.
 Device protection – Prevent users from accessing devices
that they are not entitled to access.
 Providing device-independent block size – Provide uniform
block size to higher layers hiding differences in block
sizes. I/O MNGT 22
 Device independent I/O software
 Buffering: If a user process write half a block, the OS
will normally keep the data in buffer until the rest of
the data are written. Keyboard inputs that arrive
before it is needed also require buffering.
 Allocating and releasing dedicated devices: It is up to
the OS to examine requests for devices usage and
accept or reject them.
 Error reporting: Errors handling, by and large, is done
by drivers. Most errors are device dependent. After
the driver tries to read the block a certain number of
times, it gives up and informs the device-independent
software. It then reports to the caller.

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 User level I/O software
 Although most of the i/o software is within the
operating system, a small portion of it consists of
libraries linked together with user programs.
 System calls, including the I/O system calls, are
normally made by library procedures.
 The collection of all these library procedures is clearly
part of the I/0 system.
 Not all user-level I/0 software consists of library
procedures.
 Another important category is the spooling system
which is a way of dealing with dedicated I/O devices in a
multiprogramming system.

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Summary of I/O software layers

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 9. Disk
o All real disks are organized into cylinders/platter, each
platter is arranged like a record, each one containing
many tracks.
o Each of the tracks then will be divided into sectors
(equal number of sectors or different number of
sectors).
o In the case of equal number of sectors
– The data density as closer to the center (hub) is high.
– The speed increases as the read/write moves to the outer
tracks.
o Modern large hard drives have more sectors per track on
outer tracks e.g. IDE drives.
o Many controllers can read or write on one drive while
seeking on one or more other drives, but floppy disk
controller cannot do that.I/O MNGT 26
 Disk (cont.…)

C
A

B D

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 Disk access time
o The time required to read or write a disk block is determined by
three factors
o The seek time: measures the delay for the disk head to reach the
right track.
o The rotational delay: accounts for the time to get to the right
sector.
o Transfer time: is how long the actual data read or write takes.
o There may be additional overhead for the operating system or the
controller hardware on the hard disk drive.
o Rotational speed: measured in revolutions per minute or RPM,
partially determines the rotational delay and transfer time.
o Manufacturers often report average to seek times:8-10ms
o These times average the timeI/Oto seek from any track to any other
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track.
 Disk access time(cont.…)
o Rotational delay depends partly on how fast the disk
platters spin.
o Average rotational delay = 0.5 x rotations x rotational speed
o For example, a 5400 RPM disk has an average rotational delay of: 0.5
rotations /(5400 rotations/minute) = 5.55ms.
o The overall response time is the sum of the seek time,
rotational delay, transfer time, and overhead.
 Example: Assume a disk has the following specifications.
 An average seek time of 9ms
 A 5400 RPM rotational speed
 A 10MB/s average transfer rate
 2ms of overheads
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 Disk access time(con’t…)
How long does it take to read a random 1,024-byte sector?
 The average rotational delay is 5.55ms.
 The transfer time will be about (1024 bytes / 10
MB/s) = 0.1ms.
 So the response time is then 9ms + 5.55ms + 0.1ms +
2ms = 16.7ms.
 That’s 16,700,000 cycles for a 1GHz processor!

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 Disk scheduling algorism
o the seek time dominates the other two times, so
reducing the mean seek time can improve system
performance substantially.
o There are different disk scheduling algorithms that
are used to reduce mean seek time.
 First Come First Served (FCFS)
 Shortest Seek Time First (SSTF)
 SCAN (Elevator) Algorithm
 C-SCAN (Modified Elevator) Algorithm (Circular-
SCAN)
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 First Come First Served (FCFS)
o Accept a request one at a time and carries them out
in that order.
o Service requests in the order they are received.
o The simplest and the fairest of all, but it doesn’t
improve performance
E.g: Track initial position: 11
 Track request: 1,36,16,34,9,12
 Service order: 1,36,16,34,9,12

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 Shortest Seek Time First (SSTF)
o It handles the closest (the least disk arm movement)
request next, to minimize seek time.
o Performance (efficiency): provides better
performance.
o Possibility of starvation: it lacks fairness
Example: Track initial position: 11
 Track request: 1,36,16,34,9,12
 Service order: 12,9,16, 1, 34, 36

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 SCAN (Elevator) Algorithm
o The disk arm keeps moving in the same direction until
there are no more outstanding requests in that
direction, and then it switches direction.
o It has the head start at track 0 and move towards
the highest numbered track, servicing all requests for
a track as it passes the track.
o SCAN algorithm is guaranteed to service every
request in one complete pass through the disk.
o It provides better service distribution.
Example. Track initial position: 11
 Track request: 1,36,16,34,9,12
 Direction bit: 1
 Service order: 12, 16, 34, 36, 9, 1
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 C-SCAN (Modified Elevator) Algorithm (Circular-SCAN)
o A slight modification of the elevator algorithm that has a smaller
variance in response times is always scanned in the same direction.
o When the highest-numbered cylinder with a pending request has
been serviced, the arm goes to the lowest-numbered cylinder with
a pending request and then continues moving in an upward
direction.
o In effect, the lowest-numbered cylinder is thought of as being just
above the highest-numbered cylinder.
o It reduces the maximum delay experienced by new requests.
Example: Track initial position: 11
 Track request: 1,36,16,34,9,12
 Direction bit: 1
 Service order: 12, 16, 34, 36, 1, 9
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 Redundant array independent disk(RAID)
o Redundant array of independent disks may be used to
increase disk reliability.
o In a RAID system, a single large file is stored in
several separate disk units by breaking the file up
into a number of smaller pieces and storing these
pieces on different disks.
o When a file is accessed for a read, all disks deliver
their data in parallel.
o RAID may be implemented in hardware or in the
operating system.

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 A c t i v i t y
Track request: 23, 89, 132, 42, 187
• With disk head initially at 100
• FCFS,SSTF,SCAN & C-SCAN
 Draw the request graph,
 Write the service order and
 Calculate the total seek time for each algorithm.
 Which one is the best algorithm? And why?

• Read about Look,& C-look Disk scheduling

algorithms.

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FCFS SSTF

SCAN C-SCAN

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 Practice on the following:
Request sequence =176, 79, 34, 60, 92, 11,
41, 114
Initial head position = 50
1. FCFS
2. SSTF
3. SCAN
4. CSCAN
 Draw the request graph,
 Write the service order and
 Calculate the total seek time for each algorithm.
 Which one is the best algorithm? And why?

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Thank You ...

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