• Disk Structure

• Disk Attachment
• Disk Scheduling Algorithms
(FCFS , SSTF , SACN , LOOK)
• Disk Management (Formatting ,
booting , bad sector)
• Swap-space management
• Secondary storage devices are those devices whose memory is
non volatile, meaning, the stored data will be intact even if the
system is turned off.
• A few examples are magnetic disks, magnetic tapes, removable
thumb drives etc.
• A magnetic disk contains several platters. Each platter is
divided into circular shaped tracks.
• Each track is further divided into sectors.
• A read-write head is used to read data from a sector of the
magnetic disk.
 • Tracks - Tracks mean a path in secondary storage, storage contains
tracks in circles and in every track there is sectors means tracks
are dividing in different chunks of sectors.

• Sectors - Each track is divided into a number of clusters

that represent the smallest unit of storage that is
addressable (can be written to or read). Cluster is 256 or
512 bytes in length.

• A hard disk consists of one or more circular disks called platters

which are mounted on a
common spindle. Each surface of a platter is coated with a magnetic
material. Both
surfaces of each disk are capable of storing data except the top and
bottom disk where
only the inner surface is used.
• Spindle is the axis on which the hard disk spins.

• Read Write Head- When data read from magnetic media , the read/write
head is used to convert the different magnetic poles into binary numbers
that the CPU can process. Conversely, when writing data to magnetic
media, the read/write head converts the binary signals from the CPU into
magnetic charges.
Computers access disk storage in two ways. One way is via I/O ports (or host-attached
storage); this is common on small systems. The other way is via a remote host in a
distributed file system; this is referred to as network-attached storage.

•Local disks are accessed through I/O Ports as described

earlier.
•The most common interfaces are IDE or ATA, each of which allow up
to two drives per host controller.
•SATA is similar with simpler cabling.
•High end workstations or other systems in need of larger number of
disks typically use SCSI disks.
•Network attached storage connects storage devices to computers using a
remote procedure call, RPC, interface, typically with something like NFS
filesystem mounts. This is convenient for allowing several computers in a
group common access and naming conventions for shared storage.
•NAS can be implemented using SCSI cabling, or ISCSI uses Internet
protocols and standard network connections, allowing long-distance remote
access to shared files.
•NAS allows computers to easily share data storage, but tends to be less
efficient than standard host-attached storage.
Disk Scheduling Algorithms
• Disk scheduling is done by operating systems to schedule I/O requests
arriving for the disk. Disk scheduling is also known as I/O scheduling.
• Disk scheduling is important because multiple I/O requests may arrive by
different processes and only one I/O request can be served at a time by the
disk controller. Thus other I/O requests need to wait in the waiting queue
and need to be scheduled.
• Different Disc Scheduling Algorithms are:
 FCFS (First Come First Serve) - In this Jobs or Processes are Executed in
the Manner in which they are entered into the Computer. In this Operating
System Creates a Queue which contains the Sequence Order in which they
are to be Executed and the Sequence in which the CPU will Execute the
Process.
 S.S.T.F(Shortest Seek Time First) - In this Technique The Operating System
will Search for the Shortest time means it will search which job will takes
Less Time of CPU for Running. And After Examining all the jobs, all the
Jobs are arranged in the Sequence wise or they are Organized into the
Priority Order. The shortest Seek Time will include all the Time i.e. Time to
Enter and Time to Complete the Process(Means the Total Time which a
Process Will Take For Execution).

 Round Robin Technique- In the Round Robin Scheduling the Time of CPU is
divided into the Equal Numbers which is also called as Quantum Time. Each
Process which is Request for Execution will Consume Equal Number of
Times of the CPU and after the Quantum Time of First Process, the CPU
will automatically goes to the Next Process.
 Priority Scheduling-In this Each Process have Some Priorities Assign To them ,
means each and Every Process will be Examined by using the Total Time Which
will be Consumed by the Process. The Total Time of the Process, and Number of
times a Process needs Some Input and Output and Number of Resources will be
Examines to set the Priorities of the Processes. So that all the Processes are
Arranged into the Form of these Criteria’s and After that they will be Processed
by the CPU.
 C-Scan Scheduling- n the C-Scan all the Processes are Arranged by using Some
Circular List. In the C-Scan Scheduling the CPU will search for the Process
from Start to end and if an End has Found then this again start from the
Starting Process. So that C-Scan Scheduling is used for Processing Same
Processes again and Again.
• Disk Management is a Microsoft Windows utility first introduced in Windows XP as
a replacement for the fdisk command. It enables users to view and manage the
disk drives installed in their computer and the partitions associated with those
drives.
• Some important aspects of disc management are :
 Low-level formatting, or physical formatting — Dividing a disk into sectors that the
disk controller can read and write.
 To use a disk to hold files, the operating system still needs to record its own data
structures on the disk.
 Partition the disk into one or more groups of cylinders .
 Logical formatting or “making a file system”.
 Boot block initializes system.
 The bootstrap is stored in ROM.
How to open Windows Disk Management :
• Click Start and access the Run option. You can also press Windows key + R on the
keyboard to open the Run option.
• Type “diskmgmt.msc” and press Enter.
Bad Sectors :
• Bad sector in computing refers to disk sector on a disk storage unit that is
permanently damaged. Upon taking damage, all information stored on that
sector is lost. When a bad sector is found and marked, the operating system
skips it in the future.
• Bad sectors may be detected by the operating system or the disk controller.
Disk diagnostic utilities, such as CHKDSK (Microsoft Windows), Disk
Utility (on macOS), or badblocks (on Linux) can actively look for bad sectors
upon user request.
• Virtual memory is a combination of RAM and disk space that running processes can
use. Swap space is the portion of virtual memory that is on the hard disk, used when
RAM is full.

• In operating systems such as Windows, Linux, etc. systems provide a certain amount of
swap space by default which can be changed by users according to their needs. If you
don’t want to use virtual memory you can easily disable it all together but in case if you
run out of memory then kernel will kill some of the processes in order to create a
sufficient amount of space in physical memory.
• It can be used as a single contiguous memory which reduces i/o operations to
read or write a file.
• Applications which are not used or are used less can be kept in swap file.
• Having sufficient swap file helps the system keep some physical memory free all
the time.
• The space in physical memory which has been freed due to swap space can be
used by OS for some other important tasks.