Unit IV

File Organization and

Disk scheduling Algorithms
File Concept
A file is a named Colleton of related information
 It is the logical storage unit.
 Commonly file contains programs and data.
 Information about files are kept in the directory
structure, which is maintained on the disk
 OS maps files to physical devices.
 Types of files
 Data
 Program
 Documents
File Attributes
 Name - symbolic file-name, in human-readable form
 Identifier - This unique tag, it is the non-human-readable
name for the file
 Type - for systems that support multiple types
 Location - pointer to a device and to file location on device
 Size - current size of the file
 Protection - controls who can read, write, execute
 Time, Date and user identification
- data for protection, security and usage monitoring
File Operations
 A file is an abstract data type. The different operations that can be
performed are:

 Create

 Write

 Read

 Reposition - file seek

 Delete

 Truncate
File Organization - Access Methods
 A file can be accessed in several ways
 Sequential Access
 Indexed Access

Operating System Concepts

Sequential-access File
The simplest access method is sequential access.
Here the information in the file is processed in order.
A read operation reads the next portion of the file and advances the
file pointer.
Write operation appends at the end of the file.

Operating System Concepts

Indexed Accessing
 Here we construct an index for the file .
 The index contains pointer to the various blocks.
 To find a record in the file we first search the index and
then use the pointer to access the file.

Operating System Concepts

Directory Structure
 To manage all the data on the disk we need to organize
them.
 This organization is done in two parts.
 First the disk is divided into one or more partitions.
 Each partition is divided into one or more directories.

Device Directory:
A collection of nodes containing information about all
files on a partition.

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Information in a Device Directory
 File Name
 File Type
 Address or Location
 Current Length
 Maximum Length
 Date created, Date last accessed
 Date last updated
Operations Performed on Directory
 Search for a file
 Create a file
 Delete a file
 List a directory
 Rename a file
 Traverse the file system
Single Level Directory
 A single directory for all users
 Naming Problem and Grouping Problem
 As the number of files increases, difficult to
remember unique names
 As the number of users increase, users must have
unique names.
Two Level Directory
Introduced to remove naming problem between users
 First Level contains list of user directories
 Second Level contains user files
 Need to specify Path name
 Can have same file names for different users.
 System files kept in separate directory or Level 1.
 Efficient searching
Two Level Directory
Tree Structured Directories
 Arbitrary depth of directories
 Leaf nodes are files, interior nodes are directories.
 Efficient Searching
 Grouping Capability
 Current Directory (working directory)
 MS-DOS, Linux uses a tree structured directory
Tree structured Directories
Tree Structured Directories
 Absolute or relative path name
 Absolute from root
 Relative paths from current working directory
pointer.
 Creating a new file is done in current directory
 Creating a new subdirectory is done in current
directory, e.g. mkdir <dir-name>
 Delete a file , e.g. rm file-name
 Deletion of directory
 Option 1 : Only delete if directory is empty
 Option 2: delete all files and subdirectories under
directory
Allocation Methods
An allocation method refers to how disk blocks are allocated
for files.
 Contiguous Allocation
 Linked Allocation
 Indexed Allocation
Contiguous Allocation
Each file occupies a set of contiguous blocks on the disk.

 Simple - only starting address and length are required.

 Suitable for sequential or direct access.
 Fast (very little head movement) and easy to recover if
system crashes.

Problems
Wastage of disk space.
Use first fit or best fit. Leads to external fragmentation on
disk.
Files cannot grow - expanding file requires copying
Contiguous Allocation
Linked Allocation
Each file is a linked list of disk blocks
 Blocks may be scattered anywhere on the disk.
 The directory contains a pointer to the first and last
blocks of a file.
 Each block contains a pointer to the next block.

 Disadvantages
 Lot of disk space used to store pointers,
 Efficient for sequential access files .
Linked Allocation
Indexed Allocation
 All pointers are stored into one location - The index block.
 Need index table.
 Supports sequential, direct and indexed access.
 For a new file all the pointers in the index block are set to NILL
Disadvantage
 pointer overhead – Greater than linked allocation

Index table
Indexed Allocation

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Disk Structure
 Disks are used as secondary storage medium for modern
computer.
 Disks are addressed as a large one dimensional arrays of
logical blocks.
 The size of the logical block is 512 bytes.
 The logical blocks is mapped onto the sectors of the disk
sequentially.
 Sector 0 is the first sector of the first track on the
outermost cylinder.

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Disk Scheduling
 The number of sectors per track has been increasing as disk
technology improves
 When a process needs an I/O to or from the disk, it issues a
system call to the OS .
 The request specifies several pieces of information such as:
 Whether this operation is input or output
 The disk address for the transfer
 The memory address for the transfer
 The number of sectors to be transferred

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Disk Scheduling
 If the desired disk drive and controller are available the
request can be processed immediately.
 If it is busy new requests for service will be placed in the
queue of pending requests for that drive.
 For multiprogramming system the disk queue may have
several pending requests.
 scheduling algorithms decide which pending request to
service next

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Disk Scheduling-terms
Access time
 Time taken total time taken to locate the sector to read or
write
Seek time
 It is the time for the disk head to travel to the track of the disk
where the data will be read or written.
Rotational latency
 It is the additional time waiting for the disk to rotate the
desired sector to the disk head.

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Disk Scheduling
Several algorithms exist to schedule the servicing of disk I/O
requests.
 FCFS
 SSTF
 SCAN
 C-SCAN

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FCFS
 The simplest form of disk scheduling is the FCFS
scheduling
 This algorithm is fair.
 But it generally does not provide fastest service.

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FCFS

Illustration shows total head movement of 640 cylinders.

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SSTF
 Selects the request with the minimum seek time from the
current head position.
 The seek time increases with the number of cylinders
traversed by the head ,it chooses the pending request
closest to the current head position.
 SSTF scheduling is a form of SJF scheduling; may cause
starvation of some requests.

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SSTF

Illustration shows total head movement of 236 cylinders .

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SCAN
 The disk arm starts at one end of the disk, and moves
toward the other end
 Requests are serviced as it reaches each cylinder until it
gets to the other end of the disk.
 At the other end the direction of head movement is
reversed and servicing continues.
 The head continuously scans back and forth across the
disk.
 Also called the elevator algorithm.

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SCAN (Cont.)

Illustration shows total head movement of 208 cylinders.

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 C-SCAN
 It is a variant of SCAN scheduling.
 Provides a more uniform wait time than SCAN.
 CSCAN moves the head from one end of the disk to the
other.
 servicing requests along the way. When head reaches the
other end, it immediately returns to the beginning of the
disk, without servicing any requests on the return trip.
 CSCAN scheduling algorithm treats the cylinders as a
circular list that wraps around from the last cylinder to the
first one.
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C-SCAN

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