Back to Week 14 Disks and Distributed Systems

Lecture 21 File System Implementation

Lecture 23 Distributed Systems


Overview

In today's lecture we delve into the fundamentals of disk storage technologies and their mechanics. We discuss the two main types of disk storage: Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and Solid State Drives (SSDs). While SSDs offer superior performance, HDDs remain popular due to their cost-effectiveness, being approximately 2 to 3 times cheaper. We explore the architecture of HDDs, including platters, tracks, and sectors, emphasizing how data is organized and accessed. A key concept we cover is the abstraction of disk address space and the importance of atomic operations at the block level. Additionally, we touch on disk geometry, explaining components like the spindle and head, and discussed the latency issues inherent in single-track and multi-track setups. This session provides a foundational understanding of how data is physically stored and managed within different disk technologies, setting the stage for future discussions on disk scheduling algorithms and performance optimization.

Assigned Reading

Slides

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18LSCuqxugTJDb3vYq8gDcBYg3uYaBuTaTVGoLryV7x4/edit?usp=sharing

Example Code

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References / Resources

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