Secondary Storage Devices

Secondary Storage Devices

In this section we describe some characteristics of magnetic disk and magnetic tape storage devices. Readers who have already studied these devices may simply browse through this section.

1. Hardware Description of Disk Devices

Magnetic disks are used for storing large amounts of data. The most basic unit of data on the disk is a single bit of information. By magnetizing an area on disk in certain ways, one can make it represent a bit value of either 0 (zero) or 1 (one). To code information, bits are grouped into bytes (or characters). Byte sizes are typically 4 to 8 bits, depending on the computer and the device. We assume that one character is stored in a single byte, and we use the terms byte and character interchangeably. The capacity of a disk is the number of bytes it can store, which is usually very large. Small floppy disks used with microcomputers typically hold from 400 KB to 1.5 MB; they are rapidly going out of circulation. Hard disks for personal computers typically hold from several hundred MB up to tens of GB; and large disk packs used with servers and mainframes have capacities of hundreds of GB. Disk capacities continue to grow as technology improves.

Whatever their capacity, all disks are made of magnetic material shaped as a thin circular disk, as shown in Figure 17.1(a), and protected by a plastic or acrylic cover.

A disk is single-sided if it stores information on one of its surfaces only and double-sided if both surfaces are used. To increase storage capacity, disks are assembled into a disk pack, as shown in Figure 17.1(b), which may include many disks and there-fore many surfaces. Information is stored on a disk surface in concentric circles of small width, each having a distinct diameter. Each circle is called a track. In disk packs, tracks with the same diameter on the various surfaces are called a cylinder because of the shape they would form if connected in space. The concept of a cylinder is important because data stored on one cylinder can be retrieved much faster than if it were distributed among different cylinders.

The number of tracks on a disk ranges from a few hundred to a few thousand, and the capacity of each track typically ranges from tens of Kbytes to 150 Kbytes. Because a track usually contains a large amount of information, it 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. One type of sector organization, as shown in Figure 17.2(a), calls a portion of a track that subtends a fixed angle at the center a sector. Several other sector organizations are possible, one of which is to have the sectors subtend smaller angles at the center as one moves away, thus maintaining a uniform density of recording, as shown in Figure 17.2(b). A technique called ZBR (Zone Bit Recording) allows a range of cylinders to have the same number of sectors per arc. For example, cylinders 0–99 may have one sector per track, 100–199 may have two per track, and so on. Not all disks have their tracks divided into sectors.

The division of a track into equal-sized disk blocks (or pages) is set by the operating system during disk formatting (or initialization). Block size is fixed during initialization and cannot be changed dynamically. Typical disk block sizes range from 512 to 8192 bytes. A disk with hard-coded sectors often has the sectors subdivided into blocks during initialization. Blocks are separated by fixed-size interblock gaps, which include specially coded control information written during disk initialization. This information is used to determine which block on the track follows each

interblock gap. Table 17.1 illustrates the specifications of typical disks used on large servers in industry. The 10K and 15K prefixes on disk names refer to the rotational speeds in rpm (revolutions per minute).

There is continuous improvement in the storage capacity and transfer rates associated with disks; they are also progressively getting cheaper—currently costing only a fraction of a dollar per megabyte of disk storage. Costs are going down so rapidly that costs as low 0.025 cent/MB—which translates to $0.25/GB and $250/TB—are already here.

A disk is a random access addressable device. Transfer of data between main memory and disk takes place in units of disk blocks. The hardware address of a block—a combination of a cylinder number, track number (surface number within the cylinder on which the track is located), and block number (within the track) is supplied to the disk I/O (input/output) hardware. In many modern disk drives, a single number called LBA (Logical Block Address), which is a number between 0 and n (assuming the total capacity of the disk is n + 1 blocks), is mapped automatically to the right block by the disk drive controller. The address of a buffer—a contiguous

reserved area in main storage that holds one disk block—is also provided. For a read command, the disk block is copied into the buffer; whereas for a write command, the contents of the buffer are copied into the disk block. Sometimes several contiguous blocks, called a cluster, may be transferred as a unit. In this case, the buffer size is adjusted to match the number of bytes in the cluster.

The actual hardware mechanism that reads or writes a block is the disk read/write head, which is part of a system called a disk drive. A disk or disk pack is mounted in the disk drive, which includes a motor that rotates the disks. A read/write head includes an electronic component attached to a mechanical arm. Disk packs with multiple surfaces are controlled by several read/write heads—one for each surface, as shown in Figure 17.1(b). All arms are connected to an actuator attached to another electrical motor, which moves the read/write heads in unison and positions them precisely over the cylinder of tracks specified in a block address.

Disk drives for hard disks rotate the disk pack continuously at a constant speed (typically ranging between 5,400 and 15,000 rpm). Once the read/write head is positioned on the right track and the block specified in the block address moves under the read/write head, the electronic component of the read/write head is activated to transfer the data. Some disk units have fixed read/write heads, with as many heads as there are tracks. These are called fixed-head disks, whereas disk units with an actuator are called movable-head disks. For fixed-head disks, a track or cylinder is selected by electronically switching to the appropriate read/write head rather than by actual mechanical movement; consequently, it is much faster. However, the cost of the additional read/write heads is quite high, so fixed-head disks are not commonly used.

A disk controller, typically embedded in the disk drive, controls the disk drive and interfaces it to the computer system. One of the standard interfaces used today for disk drives on PCs and workstations is called SCSI (Small Computer System Interface). The controller accepts high-level I/O commands and takes appropriate action to position the arm and causes the read/write action to take place. To transfer a disk block, given its address, the disk controller must first mechanically position the read/write head on the correct track. The time required to do this is called the seek time. Typical seek times are 5 to 10 msec on desktops and 3 to 8 msecs on servers. Following that, there is another delay—called the rotational delay or latency—while the beginning of the desired block rotates into position under the read/write head. It depends on the rpm of the disk. For example, at 15,000 rpm, the time per rotation is 4 msec and the average rotational delay is the time per half rev-olution, or 2 msec. At 10,000 rpm the average rotational delay increases to 3 msec. Finally, some additional time is needed to transfer the data; this is called the block transfer time. Hence, the total time needed to locate and transfer an arbitrary block, given its address, is the sum of the seek time, rotational delay, and block transfer time. The seek time and rotational delay are usually much larger than the block transfer time. To make the transfer of multiple blocks more efficient, it is common to transfer several consecutive blocks on the same track or cylinder. This eliminates the seek time and rotational delay for all but the first block and can result in a substantial saving of time when numerous contiguous blocks are transferred. Usually, the disk manufacturer provides a bulk transfer rate for calculating the time required to transfer consecutive blocks. Appendix B contains a discussion of these and other disk parameters.

The time needed to locate and transfer a disk block is in the order of milliseconds, usually ranging from 9 to 60 msec. For contiguous blocks, locating the first block takes from 9 to 60 msec, but transferring subsequent blocks may take only 0.4 to 2 msec each. Many search techniques take advantage of consecutive retrieval of blocks when searching for data on disk. In any case, a transfer time in the order of millisec-onds is considered quite high compared with the time required to process data in main memory by current CPUs. Hence, locating data on disk is a major bottleneck in database applications. The file structures we discuss here and in Chapter 18 attempt to minimize the number of block transfers needed to locate and transfer the required data from disk to main memory. Placing “related information” on contiguous blocks is the basic goal of any storage organization on disk.

2. Magnetic Tape Storage Devices

Disks are random access secondary storage devices because an arbitrary disk block may be accessed at random once we specify its address. Magnetic tapes are sequential access devices; to access the nth block on tape, first we must scan the preceding n – 1 blocks. Data is stored on reels of high-capacity magnetic tape, somewhat similar to audiotapes or videotapes. A tape drive is required to read the data from or write the data to a tape reel. Usually, each group of bits that forms a byte is stored across the tape, and the bytes themselves are stored consecutively on the tape.

A read/write head is used to read or write data on tape. Data records on tape are also stored in blocks—although the blocks may be substantially larger than those for disks, and interblock gaps are also quite large. With typical tape densities of 1600 to 6250 bytes per inch, a typical interblock gap of 0.6 inch corresponds to 960 to 3750 bytes of wasted storage space. It is customary to group many records together in one block for better space utilization.

The main characteristic of a tape is its requirement that we access the data blocks in sequential order. To get to a block in the middle of a reel of tape, the tape is mounted and then scanned until the required block gets under the read/write head. For this reason, tape access can be slow and tapes are not used to store online data, except for some specialized applications. However, tapes serve a very important function—backing up the database. One reason for backup is to keep copies of disk files in case the data is lost due to a disk crash, which can happen if the disk read/write head touches the disk surface because of mechanical malfunction. For this reason, disk files are copied periodically to tape. For many online critical applications, such as airline reservation systems, to avoid any downtime, mirrored systems are used to keep three sets of identical disks—two in online operation and one as backup. Here, offline disks become a backup device. The three are rotated so that they can be switched in case there is a failure on one of the live disk drives. Tapes can also be used to store excessively large database files. Database files that are seldom used or are outdated but required for historical record keeping can be archived on tape. Originally, half-inch reel tape drives were used for data storage employing the so-called 9 track tapes. Later, smaller 8-mm magnetic tapes (similar to those used in camcorders) that can store up to 50 GB, as well as 4-mm helical scan data cartridges and writable CDs and DVDs, became popular media for backing up data files from PCs and workstations. They are also used for storing images and system libraries.

Backing up enterprise databases so that no transaction information is lost is a major undertaking. Currently, tape libraries with slots for several hundred cartridges are used with Digital and Superdigital Linear Tapes (DLTs and SDLTs) having capacities in hundreds of gigabytes that record data on linear tracks. Robotic arms are used to write on multiple cartridges in parallel using multiple tape drives with automatic labeling software to identify the backup cartridges. An example of a giant library is the SL8500 model of Sun Storage Technology that can store up to 70 petabytes (petabyte = 1000 TB) of data using up to 448 drives with a maximum throughput rate of 193.2 TB/hour. We defer the discussion of disk storage technology called RAID, and of storage area networks, network-attached storage, and iSCSI storage systems to the end of the chapter.