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.
   Access time has two major components
        Seek time is the time for the disk to move the heads to the cylinder
         containing the desired sector.
        Rotational latency is the additional time waiting for the disk to rotate the
         desired sector to the disk head.
   Minimize seek time
   Seek time  seek distance
   Disk bandwidth 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.
Moving-head Disk Machanism
                      Disk Scheduling (Cont.)
   Several algorithms exist to schedule the servicing of disk I/O requests.
   We illustrate them 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
   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.
                    SSTF (Cont.)
Illustration shows total head movement of 236 cylinders.
                                     SCAN
   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 called the elevator algorithm.
                      SCAN (Cont.)
Illustration shows total head movement of 208 cylinders.
                                  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.)
                                     C-LOOK
   Version of C-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 (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.
   Performance depends on the number and types of requests.
   Requests for disk service can be influenced by the file-allocation method.
   The disk-scheduling algorithm should be written as a separate module of the
    operating system, allowing it to be replaced with a different algorithm if
    necessary.
   Either SSTF or LOOK is a reasonable choice for the default algorithm.