CSC 315:

Computer
Organization and
Architecture
Chapter 6 (3
ExternalUnits)
Memory
Dr. Asunogie
EDO STATE UNIVERSITY UZAIRUE (EDSU)
Magnetic Disk Electric pulses are sent to the write head, and the resulting magne
A disk is a circular platter constructed of nonmagnetic patterns are recorded on the surface below, with different patterns f
material, called the substrate, coated with a magnetizable positive and negative currents. The write head itself is made of eas
material. Traditionally, the substrate has been an aluminum magnetizable material and is in the shape of a rectangular doughnut with
or aluminum alloy material. More recently, glass substrates gap along one side and
have been introduced. The glass substrate has a number of a few turns of conducting wire along the opposite side (Figure 6.1). A
benefits, including the following: electric current in the wire induces a magnetic field across the gap, which
• Improvement in the uniformity of the magnetic film turn magnetizes a small area of the recording medium. Reversing t
direction of the current reverses the direction of the magnetization on t
surface to increase disk reliability
recording medium.
• A significant reduction in overall surface defects to help
The traditional read mechanism exploits the fact that a magnetic fie
reduce read-write errors
moving relative to a coil produces an electrical current in the coil. When t
• Ability to support lower fly heights (described surface of the disk passes under the head, it generates a current of t
subsequently) same polarity as the one
• Better stiffness to reduce disk dynamics already recorded. The structure of the head for reading is in this ca
• Greater ability to withstand shock and damage essentially the same as for writing and therefore the same head can be us
Magnetic Read and Write Mechanisms for both. Such single heads are used in floppy disk systems and in older rig
disk systems.
Data are recorded on and later retrieved from the disk via a
Contemporary rigid disk systems use a different read mechanism, requiri
conducting coil named the head; in many systems, there
a separate read head, positioned for convenience close to the write hea
are two heads, a read head and a write head. During a read The read head consists of a partially shielded magnetoresistive (MR) sens
or write operation, the head is stationary while the platter The MR material has an electrical resistance that depends on the directi
rotates beneath it. of the magnetization of the medium moving under it. By passing a curre
The write mechanism exploits the fact that electricity through the MR sensor, resistance changes are detected as voltage signa
flowing through a coil produces a magnetic field. The MR design allows higher-frequency operation, which equates to great
storage densities and operating speeds
Figure 6.2 depicts this data layout. Adjacent tracks are separated by intertrack gaps . This prevents, or at least
minimizes, errors due to misalignment of the head or simply interference of magnetic fields. Data are transferred to
and from the disk in sectors . There are typically hundreds of sectors per track, and these may be of either fixed or
variable length. In most contemporary systems, fixed-length sectors are used, with 512 bytes being the nearly
universal sector size. To avoid imposing unreasonable precision requirements on the system, adjacent sectors are
separated by inter sector gaps.
A bit near the center of a rotating disk travels past a fixed point (such as a read–write
head) slower than a bit on the outside. Therefore, some way must be found to
compensate for the variation in speed so that the head can read all the bits at the same
rate. This can be done by increasing the spacing between bits of information recorded in
segments of the disk. The information can then be scanned at the same rate by rotating
the disk at a fixed speed, known as the constant angular velocity (CAV). Figure 6.3a
shows the layout of a disk using CAV. The disk is divided into a number of pie-shaped
sectors and into a series of concentric tracks. The advantage of using CAV is that
individual blocks of data can be directly addressed by track and sector. To move the head
from its current location to a specific address, it only takes a short movement of the
head to a specific track and a short wait for the proper sector to spin under the head.
The disadvantage of CAV is that the amount of data that can be stored on the long outer
tracks is the only same as what can be stored on the short inner tracks. Because the
density, in bits per linear inch, increases in moving from the outermost track to the
innermost track, disk storage capacity in a straightforward CAV system is limited by the
maximum recording density that can be achieved on the innermost track. To increase
density, modern hard disk systems use a technique known as multiple zone recording, in
which the surface is divided into a number of concentric zones (16 is typical). Within a
zone, the number of bits per track is constant. Zones farther from the center contain
more bits (more sectors) than zones closer to the center. This allows for greater overall
storage capacity at the expense of somewhat more complex circuitry. As the disk head
moves from one zone to another, the length (along the track) of individual bits changes,
causing a change in the timing for reads and writes.
Figure 6.3b is a simplified MZR layout, with 15 tracks organized into 5 zones.
The innermost two zones have two tracks each, with each track having nine sectors; the
next zone has 3 tracks, each with 12 sectors; and the outermost 2 zones have 4 tracks
each, with each track having 16 sectors.
Some means is needed to locate sector positions within a track. Clearly, there must be some starting point on the track and a way
of identifying the start and end of each sector. These requirements are handled by means of control data recorded on the disk.
Thus, the disk is formatted with some extra data used only by the disk drive and not accessible to the user.
An example of disk formatting is shown in Figure 6.4. In this case, each track contains 30 fixed-length sectors of 600 bytes each.
Each sector holds 512 bytes of data plus control information useful to the disk controller. The ID field is a unique identifier or
address used to locate a particular sector. The SYNCH byte is a special bit pattern that delimits the beginning of the field. The
track number identifies a track on a surface. The head number identifies a head, because this disk has multiple surfaces
(explained presently). The ID and data fields each contain an error detecting code.
 The disk itself is mounted in a disk drive, which consists of the arm, a
spindle that rotates the disk, and the electronics needed for input and
output of binary data.
A non-removable disk is permanently mounted in the disk drive; the
hard disk in a personal computer is a non-removable disk. A
removable disk can be removed and replaced with another disk. The
advantage of the latter type is that unlimited amounts of data are
available with a limited number of disk systems. Furthermore, such a
disk may be moved from one computer system to another. Floppy
disks and ZIP cartridge disks are examples of removable disks.
For most disks, the magnetizable coating is applied to both sides of
Table 6.1 lists the major characteristics that differentiate the platter, which is then referred to as double sided. Some less
among the various types of magnetic disks. expensive disk systems use single-sided disks.
Some disk drives accommodate multiple platters stacked vertically a
First, the head may either be fixed or movable with fraction of an inch apart. Multiple arms are provided (Figure 6.2).
respect to the radial direction of the platter. In a fixed- Multiple–platter disks employ a movable head, with one read-write
head disk, there is one read-write head per track. All of head per platter surface. All of the heads are mechanically fixed so
the heads are mounted on a rigid arm that extends across that all are at the same distance from the center of the disk and move
all tracks; such systems are rare today. In a movable-head together. Thus, at any time, all of the heads are positioned over
disk, there is only one read-write head. Again, the head is tracks that are of equal distance from the center of the disk. The set
mounted on an arm. Because the head must be able to of all the tracks
be positioned above any track, the arm can be extended in the same relative position on the platter is referred to as a cylinder.
or retracted for this purpose. This is illustrated in Figure 6.2.
Finally, the head mechanism provides a classification of disks into
three types. Traditionally, the read-write head has been positioned
a fixed distance above the platter, allowing an air gap. At the other
extreme is a head mechanism that actually comes into physical
contact with the medium during a read or write operation. This
mechanism is used with the floppy disk, which is a small, flexible
platter and the least expensive type of disk.
To understand the third type of disk, we need to comment on the
relationship between data density and the size of the air gap. The
head must generate or sense an electromagnetic field of sufficient
magnitude to write and read properly. The narrower the head is,
the closer it must be to the platter surface to function. A narrower
head means narrower tracks and therefore greater data density,
which is desirable. However, the closer the head is to the disk, the
greater the risk of error from impurities or imperfections. To push
the technology further, the Winchester disk was developed.
Winchester heads are used in sealed drive assemblies that are
almost free of contaminants. They are designed to operate closer
to the disk’s surface than conventional rigid disk heads, thus
allowing greater data density. The head is actually an aerodynamic
foil that rests lightly on the platter’s surface when the disk is
motionless. The air pressure generated by a spinning disk is
enough to make the foil rise above the surface. The resulting
Table 6.2 gives disk parameters for typical contemporary high-
noncontact system can be engineered to use narrower heads that
performance disks.
operate closer to the platter’s surface than conventional rigid disk
heads.
 The sum of the seek time, if any, and the rotational delay equals the
access time, which is the time it takes to get into position to read or
write. Once the head is in position, the read or write operation is
then performed as the sector moves under the head; this is the data
transfer portion of the operation; the time required for the transfer is
the transfer time.
In addition to the access time and transfer time, there are several
queuing delays normally associated with a disk I/O operation. When
a process issues an I/O request, it must first wait in a queue for the
device to be available. At that time, the device is assigned to the
The actual details of disk I/O operation depend on the computer process. If the device shares a single I/O channel or a set of I/O
system, the operating system, and the nature of the I/O channel channels with other disk drives, then there may be an additional wait
and disk controller hardware. A general timing diagram of disk for the channel to be available. At that point, the seek is performed
/O transfer is shown in Figure 6.5. to begin disk access.
When the disk drive is operating, the disk is rotating at constant In some high-end systems for servers, a technique known as
speed. To read or write, the head must be positioned at the rotational positional sensing (RPS) is used. This works as follows:
desired track and at the beginning of the desired sector on that When the seek command has been issued, the channel is released to
rack. Track selection involves moving the head in a movable- handle other I/O operations. When the seek is completed, the device
head system or electronically selecting one head on a fixed-head determines when the data will rotate under the head. As that sector
system. approaches the head, the device tries to reestablish the
On a movable-head system, the time it takes to position the communication path back to the host. If either the control unit or the
head at the track is known as seek time. In either case, once the channel is busy with another I/O, then the reconnection attempt fails
rack is selected, the disk controller waits until the appropriate
and the device must rotate one whole revolution before it can
sector rotates to line up with the head. The time it takes for the
attempt to reconnect, which is called an RPS miss. This is an extra
beginning of the sector to reach the head is known as rotational
delay element that must be added to the timeline of Figure 6.5.
delay, or rotational latency.
 It is clear that the order in which sectors are read
from the disk has a tremendous effect on I/O
performance. In the case of file access in which
multiple sectors are read or written, we have some
control over the way in which sectors of data are
deployed. However, even in the case of a file access,
in a multiprogramming environment, there will be
I/O requests competing for the same disk. Thus, it is
worthwhile to examine ways in which the
performance of disk I/O can be improved over that
achieved with purely random access to the disk. This
leads to a consideration of disk scheduling
algorithms, which is the province of the operating
system

The unique contribution of the RAID proposal is to address effectively the need for redundancy. Although allowing multiple heads
and actuators to operate simultaneously achieves higher I/O and transfer rates, the use of multiple devices increases the
probability of failure. To compensate for this decreased reliability, RAID makes use of stored parity information that enables the
recovery of data lost due to a disk failure. We now examine each of the RAID levels. Table 6.3 provides a rough guide to the seven
levels. In the table, I/O performance is shown both in terms of data transfer capacity, or ability to move data, and I/O request
rate, or ability to satisfy I/O requests, since these RAID levels inherently perform differently relative to these two metrics. Each
RAID level’s strong point is highlighted by darker shading.