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Storage Organization: Mr. C. Ncube and Mrs. Marabada (Introduction To IT Laboratory)

The document discusses data storage organization on hard disks. It explains that files can be fragmented across multiple disk clusters that are physically separated. Defragmentation is needed to improve organization by placing file clusters closer together. The document also notes that disk controllers can optimize read/write requests and that using multiple disks provides benefits over a single larger disk like fault tolerance and transfer speeds. Hard disk geometry reported is sometimes fictional and capacity is determined by logical block addressing instead.

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Clemence Munaki
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22 views

Storage Organization: Mr. C. Ncube and Mrs. Marabada (Introduction To IT Laboratory)

The document discusses data storage organization on hard disks. It explains that files can be fragmented across multiple disk clusters that are physically separated. Defragmentation is needed to improve organization by placing file clusters closer together. The document also notes that disk controllers can optimize read/write requests and that using multiple disks provides benefits over a single larger disk like fault tolerance and transfer speeds. Hard disk geometry reported is sometimes fictional and capacity is determined by logical block addressing instead.

Uploaded by

Clemence Munaki
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Storage Organization

Mr. C. Ncube and Mrs. Marabada


(Introduction to IT Laboratory)

1
Hard Disc Data Organization
Logical organization in files
Physical organization in clusters (of
sectors)

A file allocation table translates


between logical and physical
organizations
There are various popular organizations of the file allocation table:
FAT, NTFS, Unix,
2
File Allocation on Disc
A file can occupy several clusters (of sectors)
on the disc
The operating system can assign clusters that
are physically far apart on disc
Modification of files may require new clusters
to be allocated (and other clusters to be
freed)
File fragmentation

3
Defragmentation under WinXP
A disc that should
be defragmented

4
Defragmentation
A fairly well
organized disc
does not need to
be defragmented

5
Disc Considerations
Disc controller can analyze the requests
for read/write of sectors and reorder
them to reduce the delays

Multiple discs are better than a single


disc of the same capacity
Fault tolerance
Higher disc transfer rates

6
Disc Considerations (cont.)
More RAM is always good: reduces the
necessity to swap to disc (see yellow line)

7
Hard Discs are not what they
seem
Often the heads/cylinders/sectors reported are not
what they really are

Discs larger than 8.4 GB report their geometry as:


16383 cyl.
16 heads
63 sectors/track

This is meaningless their capacity is obtained by


consulting the Logical Block Addressing (LBA)
(see: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/modesLBA-c.html)

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