File System and Secondary

Storage
 File Concept
 Contiguous logical address space
 Types:
 Data
 numeric
 character
 binary
 Program
 Contents (many types) is defined by file’s creator
 text file,
 source file,
 executable file
 File Attributes
 Name – only information kept in human-readable form
 Identifier – unique tag (number) identifies file within file system
 Type – needed for systems that support different types
 Location – pointer to file location on the device (disk)
 Size – current file size
 Protection – controls who can do reading, writing, executing
 Time, date, and user identification – information kept for
creation time, last modification time, and last use time.
 Useful for data for protection, security, and usage monitoring
 Many variations, including extended file attributes such as file
checksum
 Information kept in the directory structure (on disk), which
consists of “inode” entries for each of the files in the system.
 File Operations
 Create
 Write – at write pointer location
 Read – at read pointer location
 Reposition within file - seek
 Delete
 Truncate
 Open(Fi) – search the directory structure on disk for inode
entry Fi, and move the content of the entry to memory
 Close (Fi) – move the content of inode entry Fi in memory to
directory structure on disk.
File Types – Name, Extension
 Access Methods
Sequential Access

 General structure

 Operations:
 read_next () – reads the next portion of the file and
automatically advances a file pointer.
 write_next () – append to the end of the file and
advances to the end of the newly written material
(the new end of file).
 reset – back to the beginning of the file.
 Access Methods
Direct Access

 File is made up of fixed-length logical records that allow

programs to read and write records rapidly in no particular
order.
 File is viewed as a numbered sequence of blocks or records.
For example, can read block 14, then read block 53, and
then write block 7.
 Operations:
 read(n) – reads relative block number n.
 write(n) – writes relative block number n.
 Relative block numbers allow OS to decide where file should
be placed
 Other Access Methods

 Can be built on top of the base methods

 Generally -- involve creation of an index for the file
 Keep index in memory for fast determination of location of data
to be operated on (consider UPC code plus record of data
about that item)
 If too large, keep index (in memory) of the main index (on disk)
 IBM indexed sequential-access method (ISAM)
 Small master index, points to disk blocks of secondary
index
 File kept sorted on a defined key
 All done by the OS
 VMS operating system provides index and relative files as
another example
Example of Index and Relative Files
 Directory Structure

A collection of nodes containing information about all files

Operations performed
Directory
on directory
Search for a file

Create a file

Delete a file
Files
F1 F2 F4
F3 List a directory
Fn
Rename a file

Traverse the file

Both the directory structure and the files reside on disk system
 Single-Level Directory
 A single directory for all users

 Naming problem
 Grouping problem
 Two-Level Directory
 Separate directory for each user

 Path name
 Can have the same file name for different user
 Efficient searching
 No grouping capability
 Tree-Structured Directories

 Efficient searching
 Grouping Capability
 Acyclic-Graph Directories

Have shared subdirectories and files

 Files/subdirectories have two different names (aliasing)

 Only one actual file exists, so any changes made by
one person are immediately visible to the other.
 Acyclic-Graph Directories (Cont.)

 Shared files and subdirectories can be implemented in several

ways:
 Can duplicate the inode information about the shared
file/subdirectory in each of the subdirectories that “point’ to
the shared structure.
 If some information changes about the file it had to be updated in
several places.
 Create a new directory entry called a link.
 Link – another name (pointer) to an existing file or subdirectory.
 When a reference to a file is made, the directory is searched. If
the directory entry is marked as a link, then the name of the real
file is included in the link information.
 We resolve the link by using that path name to locate the real
file.
 The operating system ignores these links when traversing
directory trees to preserve the acyclic structure of the system.
 Acyclic-Graph Directories -- Deletion
 If dict /count is deleted  dangling pointer
Solutions:
 Backpointers -- so we can delete all pointers.
 Variable size records a problem
 Backpointers using a daisy-chain organization
 Entry-hold-count solution
 General Graph Directory

 How do we guarantee no cycles?

 Allow only links to file not subdirectories
 Garbage collection
 Every time a new link is added use a cycle detection algorithm
to determine whether it is OK
 Disk Space Allocation Methods
 A disk is a direct-access device and thus gives us flexibility
in the implementation of files.
 The main issue is how to allocate space to these files so that
disk space is utilized effectively and files can be accessed
quickly.
 Three major methods of allocating disk space are in wide
 Contiguous
 Linked
 Indexed
 Contiguous Allocation
Each file occupies a set of contiguous blocks
 Best performance in most cases
 Simple – only starting location (block #) and length
(number of blocks) are required
 Problems include:
 Finding space for file,
 Knowing the max file size,
 External fragmentation,
 Need for compaction
 Linked Allocation
Each file is a linked list of blocks

 No external fragmentation
 Each block contains pointer to next block
 Free space management system called when new block
needed
 Locating a block can take many I/Os and disk seeks
 Reliability can be a problem (what if one of the pointers
get corrupted?)
 Improve efficiency by clustering blocks into groups but
increases internal fragmentation
Linked Allocation (Cont.)
 Indexed Allocation
 Indexed allocation
 Each file has its own index block(s) of pointers to its data
blocks
 In linked allocation, pointers to the blocks are scattered with
the blocks themselves all over the disk and need to be
retrieved in order.
 Indexed allocation solves this problem by bringing all the
pointers together into one location: the index block.

 Need an index table

 Random access
 Dynamic access without external fragmentation, but have
overhead of index block
 Can be accomplished with 3 different methods:
 Linked scheme.
 Multilevel index
 Combined scheme.
Example of Indexed Allocation
 Free-Space Management
 File system maintains free-space list to track available
blocks/clusters
 (Using term “block” for simplicity)
 Four different methods:
 Bit map
 Free list
 Grouping
 Counting
 Free-Space Management – bit map
 Bit vector (or bit map) (n blocks)

0 1 2 n-1
…

1  block[i] free
bit[i] = {
0  block[i] occupied

Block number calculation

(number of bits per word) *

(number of 0-value words) +
offset of first 1 bit

CPUs have instructions to return offset within word of first “1” bit
 Free List

 Linked list (free list)

 Cannot get contiguous
space easily
 No waste of space
 No need to traverse the
entire list (if # free blocks
recorded)
 Grouping and Counting
 Grouping
 Modify linked list to store address of next n-1 free blocks in
first free block, plus a pointer to next block that contains
free-block-pointers (like this one)

 Counting
 Because space is frequently contiguously used and freed,
with contiguous-allocation allocation, extents, or clustering
 Keep address of first free block and count of following
free blocks
 Free space list then has entries containing addresses
and counts
 Disk Scheduling
 The operating system is responsible for using hardware
efficiently — for the disk drives, this means having a fast
access time and disk bandwidth
 Minimize seek time
 Seek time  seek distance
 Seek time is the time for the disk arm to move the heads
to the cylinder containing the desired sector.
 Rotational latency
 It is the additional time waiting for the disk arm to rotate
the desired sector to the disk head.
 Disk bandwidth
 It is the total number of bytes transferred, divided by the
total time between the first request for service and the
completion of the last transfer
 Disk Scheduling (Cont.)
 There are many sources of disk I/O request
 OS
 System processes
 Users processes
 I/O request includes input or output mode, disk address,
memory address, number of sectors to transfer
 OS maintains queue of requests, per disk or device
 Idle disk can immediately work on I/O request, busy disk
means work must be queued.
 Optimization algorithms only make sense when a
queue exists
 Disk Scheduling (Cont.)
 Note that drive controllers have small buffers and can
manage a queue of I/O requests (of varying “depth”)
 Several algorithms exist to schedule the servicing of
disk I/O requests
 The analysis is true for one or many platters
 We illustrate scheduling algorithms with a request
queue (0-199)

98, 183, 37, 122, 14, 124, 65, 67

Head pointer 53
 FCFS
Illustration shows total head movement of 640 cylinders
 SSTF
 Shortest Seek Time First -- selects the request with the
minimum seek time from the current head position
 SSTF scheduling is a form of SJF scheduling; may cause
starvation of some requests
 Illustration shows total head movement of 236 cylinders
 SCAN

 SCAN algorithm. The disk arm starts at one end of the

disk, and moves toward the other end, servicing requests
until it gets to the other end of the disk, where the head
movement is reversed and servicing continues.
 Sometimes it is called the elevator algorithm
 Illustration shows total head movement of 208 cylinders
 But note that if requests are uniformly dense, largest density
at other end of disk and those wait the longest
SCAN (Cont.)
 C-SCAN
 Provides a more uniform wait time than SCAN
 The head moves from one end of the disk to the other,
servicing requests as it goes
 When it reaches the other end, however, it immediately
returns to the beginning of the disk, without servicing
any requests on the return trip
 Treats the cylinders as a circular list that wraps around from
the last cylinder to the first one
C-SCAN (Cont.)
 LOOK and C-LOOK
 LOOK is a version of SCAN. Arm only goes as far as the
last request in each direction, then reverses direction
immediately, without first going all the way to the end of
the disk
 C-LOOK a version of C-SCAN. Arm only goes as far as
the last request in one direction, then reverses direction
immediately, without first going all the way to the end of
the disk
C-LOOK (Cont.)
 Selecting a Disk-Scheduling Algorithm

 SSTF is common and has a natural appeal

 SCAN and C-SCAN perform better for systems that place
a heavy load on the disk
 Less starvation
 Performance depends on the number and types of
requests
 Requests for disk service can be influenced by the file-
allocation method
 References
Operating Systems Concepts by Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne