File Structures Course

Sheet: 1
1. Define seek time, rotational delay, and transfer time?
2. 8M file, saving on a disk which has 500byte/sector, 4 sectors/cluster,
100sectors/track, 100 cylinders, 10 tracks/cylinder, spindle speed is
6000rpm, average seek time is 8ms. Suppose there is a rotational delay
when switching tracks on same cylinder,

(a) How many clusters does this file need? If these clusters are allocated
contiguously, what is the time for reading this file? Do clusters really matter
on reading time?

(b) If these clusters are totally scattered around, no any two are adjacent,
what is the time now? Do clusters matter on reading time now?

3. Suppose we want to store a file with 60 000 fixed-length data records on

a computer disk with the following characteristics:
 Number of bytes per sector = 256
 Number of sectors per track = 50
 Number of tracks per cylinder= 16
 Number of cylinders = 5000

How many cylinders does the file require if each data record requires 128
bytes
4. If have a single platter disk of a rotational speed of 7200 rpm, 10,000
tracks per platter, 500 sectors per track, and speed of head is 2 ms for
every 100 tracks, Let the disk receives a request to read a random sector,
then get:

A. Average seek time

B. Average rotational latency
C. Transfer time for a sector
D. Time to read half of a track
E. Total average time to satisfy the request

5- Given a Western Digital Caviar AC22100 Disk System with the

following characteristics:
Capacity: 2,100 MB
Average Seek Time: 12 msec
Average Rotational Delay: 6msec
Transfer rate: 12 msec/track
Bytes per Sector: 512
Sectors per track: 63
Tracks per cylinder: 16
 Cylinders: 4092
Assume that you want to store a file with 350,000 80-byte records.
1. How many cylinders are necessary to hold the file given that a
record can span several sectors, tracks or cylinders?
2. How many cylinders are necessary to hold the file if a record is
not allowed to span more than one sector?
3. Assume the situation in question 2, and assume that there are
no interferences from other processes and that the file
completely fills a cylinder before it continues into the next
cylinder and that the required cylinders are dispersed randomly
on the disk. How long would it take to access the entire file in
sequence?
4. Under the same assumptions as question 3., how long would it
take to access the entire file randomly (accessing every record,
but in random order)?

If have a single platter disk of average seek time of 4 ms and 3600

rpm, 120 tracks per platter, 96 sectors per track, 512 bytes per
sector. If a file is distributed in the followings:
A. Data are distributed evenly from tracks 20 to 30 and half of track
31.
B. Data are semi randomly distributes as: 20 to 22, 50 to 51, 90 to
92, and from 110 to 119.
C. Data are randomly distributed in 34 different tracks.
Then get for each case:
- File size in bytes.
- Time to access data in each case
6- A command is sent to hard disk to move the head from track 0 to track
500 then to sector 23 then to read byte 420. How long does it take to do all
that if you know that?

“Single-platter disk, with 5000 tracks per platter, 250 sectors per track, and
512 bytes per sector. Also the speed movement of the head is 1 ms for
every 100 track.”

(a) Get average seek time

(b) Average rotational delay
(c) Transfer time per sector
(d) Total average time to satisfy the request

« With my best wishes »

Dr. Arabi Keshk