Disk Storage, Basic File Structures, and Hashing

1. Disk Storage, Basic File Structures, and Hashing Chapter 13 Byung-Hyun Ha bhha@pusan.ac.kr

2. Table of Contents • Disk Storage Devices • Files of Records • Operations on Files • Unordered Files • Ordered Files • Hashed Files • RAID Technology

3. Introduction • Computer storage media • Primary storage • Secondary storage • Memory hierarchies and storage devices • Primary storage level • cache memory – static RAM • DRAM • Secondary storage level • magnetic disks • CD-ROM, optical jukebox memories, DVD • magnetic tapes, tape jukeboxes • Flash memory • Storage of databases

4. Disk Storage Devices • High storage capacity and low cost • Preferred secondary storage device for • Magnetic disk surfaces • Data stored as magnetized areas • A disk pack contains several magnetic disks connected to a rotating spindle • Disks are divided into concentric circular tracks on each disk surface • track capacities vary typically from 4 to 50 Kbytes • divided into smaller blocks or sectors

5. Disk Storage Devices • A single-sided disk (a) and a disk pack (b)

6. Disk Storage Devices • Different sector organizations on disk (a) Sectors subtending a fixed angle (b) Sectors maintaining a uniform recording density.

7. Disk Storage Devices • Blocks • Because a track usually contains a large amount of information, it is divided into smaller blocks • Block size B is fixed for each system • Typical block sizes range from B=512 bytes to B=4096 bytes • Whole blocks are transferred between disk and main memory for processing • Transferring disk blocks • A read-write head moves to the track that contains the block to be transferred • Disk rotation moves the block under the read-write head for reading or writing • 12 to 60 msec (Seek time / rotational delay / block transfer time)

8. Disk Storage Devices • Double buffering

9. Placing File Records on Disk • Records • Fixed and variable length records • Records contain fields which have values of a particular type (e.g., amount, date, time, age) • Fields themselves may be fixed length or variable length • Variable length fields can be mixed into one record • separator characters or length fields are needed so that the record can be “parsed”

10. Placing File Records on Disk (a) A fixed-length record with six fields and size of 71 bytes (b) A record with variable-length fields and fixed-length fields (c) A variable-field record with three types of separator characters

11. Files of Records • Block • Unit of data transfer • File • A sequence of records • each record is a collection of data values (or data items) • File descriptor • includes information that describes the file, such as the field names and their data types, and the addresses of the file blocks on disk • Records are stored on disk blocks • the blocking factorbfr for a file is the (average) number of file records stored in a disk block • A file can have fixed-length records or variable-length records

12. Files of Records • Unspanned or spanned records

13. Operation on Files • Typical file operations • OPEN • FIND • FINDNEXT • READ • INSERT • DELETE • MODIFY • CLOSE • REORGANIZE • READ_ORDERED

14. Files of Unordered Records • Also called a heap or a pile file • New records are inserted at the end of the file • linear search through the file records • This requires reading and searching half the file blocks on the average, and is hence quite expensive • Record insertion is quite efficient • Reading the records in order of a particular field requires sorting the file records

15. Files of Ordered Records • Also called a sequential file • File records are kept sorted by the values of an ordering field • Insertion is expensive • Records must be inserted in the correct order • It is common to keep a separate unordered overflow (or transaction) file for new records to improve insertion efficiency; this is periodically merged with the main ordered file. • A binary search can be used to search for a record on its ordering field value • This requires reading and searching log2 of the file blocks on the average, an improvement over linear search. • Reading the records in order of the ordering field is quite efficient

16. Files of Ordered Records • An example

17. Files of Ordered Records • Binary search for an key value K of a disk file • Algorithm: Binary search on an ordering key of a disk file • l 1; u  b; (* b is the number of file blocks*) • while (u l) do • begin i (l + u) div 2; • read block i of the file into the buffer; • if K < (ordering key field value of the first record in block i) • then u  i – 1 • else if K > (ordering key field value of the last record in block i) • then l  i + 1 • else if the record with ordering key field value = K is in the buffer • then goto found • else goto notfound; • end; • goto notfound;

18. Average Access Times

19. Hashing Technique • Hashing • Search using hash function of yielding address for hash key • The search condition must be an equality condition on hash field • Collision hash("apple") = 5hash("watermelon") = 3hash("grapes") = 8hash("cantaloupe") = 7hash("kiwi") = 0hash("strawberry") = 9hash("mango") = 6hash("banana") = 2hash("honeydew") = 6

20. Hashing Technique • Collision resolution • Open addressing / chaining / multiple hashing

21. External Hashing for Disk Files • Hashing for disk files is called External Hashing • The file blocks are divided into M equal-sized buckets • Typically, a bucket corresponds to one (or a fixed number of) disk block • One of the file fields is designated to be the hash key of the file • The record with hash key value K is stored in bucket i, where i=h(K), and h is the hashing function • Search is very efficient on the hash key • Collisions occur when a new record hashes to a bucket that is already full • An overflow file is kept for storing such records. Overflow records that hash to each bucket can be linked together

22. External Hashing for Disk Files • Matching bucket numbers to disk block addresses

23. External Hashing for Disk Files • To reduce overflow records, a hash file is typically kept 70-80% full • The hash function h should distribute the records uniformly among the buckets • otherwise, search time will be increased because many overflow records will exist. • Main disadvantages of static external hashing • Fixed number of buckets M is a problem if the number of records in the file grows or shrinks • Ordered access on the hash key is quite inefficient (requires sorting the records).

24. External Hashing for Disk Files • Overflow handling

25. Dynamic Hashing Technique • Hashing techniques are adapted to allow the dynamic growth and shrinking of the number of file records • These techniques include the following • Extendible hashing and linear hashing • Extendible hashing • Use the binary representation of the hash value h(K) in order to access a directory • Directory is an array of size 2d where d is called the global depth

26. Dynamic Hashing Technique • Extendible hashing

27. Dynamic Hashing Technique • Linear hashing • This is another dynamic hashing scheme, an alternative to Extendible Hashing. • Motivation: Ext. Hashing uses a directory that grows by doubling… Can we do better? (smoother growth) • LH: split buckets from left to right, regardless of which one overflowed (simple, but it works!!)

28. Example of Linear Hashing

29. Example of Linear Hashing

30. Example of Linear Hashing

31. Example of Linear Hashing

32. Example of Linear Hashing

33. Example of Linear Hashing

34. Example of Linear Hashing

35. Example of Linear Hashing

36. Other Primary File Organizations • Files of mixed records • Connecting fields • Logical vs. physical file reference • Physical clustering • B-Tree and other data structures

37. Parallelizing Disk Access • Secondary storage technology must take steps to keep up in performance and reliability with processor technology • A major advance in secondary storage technology is represented by the development of RAID, which originally stood for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks • The main goal of RAID is to even out the widely different rates of performance improvement of disks against those in memory and microprocessors

38. RAID Technology • A natural solution is a large array of small independent disks acting as a single higher-performance logical disk. A concept called data striping is used, which utilizes parallelism to improve disk performance. • Data striping distributes data transparently over multiple disks to make them appear as a single large, fast disk.

39. Improving Reliability with RAID • Likelihood of failure • Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) • One disk: 200,000 hours • n disks: (200,000 / n)hours • Improving reliability • Introducing redundancy • Mirroring or shadowing • Storing extra information • parity bits or hamming codes

40. RAID Technology • Based on striping and redundant information. • Raid level 0 uses no redundant data and hence has the best write performance • Raid level 1 uses mirrored disks. • Raid level 2 uses memory-style redundancy by using Hamming codes, which contain parity bits for distinct overlapping subsets of components • Raid level 3 uses a single parity disk relying on the disk controller to figure out which disk has failed • Raid Levels 4 and 5 use block-level data striping, with level 5 distributing data and parity information across all disks • Raid level 6 applies the so-called P + Q redundancy scheme using Reed-Soloman codes to protect against up to two disk failures by using just two redundant disks

41. RAID Technology • Multiple level of RAID