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Unit 5. File and Input/output Management

5.1. Introduction to File System
A file is a collection of correlated information which is recorded on secondary or non-volatile storage
like magnetic disks, optical disks, and tapes. It is a method of data collection that is used as a medium
for giving input and receiving output from that program.
In general, a file is a sequence of bits, bytes, or records whose meaning is defined by the file creator
and user. Every File has a logical location where they are located for storage and retrieval.

Objective of File management System

• It provides I/O support for a variety of storage device types.
• Minimizes the chances of lost or destroyed data
• Helps OS to standardized I/O interface routines for user processes.
• It provides I/O support for multiple users in a multiuser systems environment.

Properties of a File System

• Files are stored on disk or other storage and do not disappear when a user logs off.
• Files have names and are associated with access permission that permits controlled sharing.
• Files could be arranged or more complex structures to reflect the relationship between them.

File structure
A File Structure needs to be predefined format in such a way that an operating system understands. It
has an exclusively defined structure, which is based on its type.
Three types of files structure in OS:
• A text file: It is a series of characters that is organized in lines.
• An object file: It is a series of bytes that is organized into blocks.
• A source file: It is a series of functions and processes.

File Attributes
A file has a name and data. Moreover, it also stores meta information like file creation date and time,
current size, last modified date, etc. All this information is called the attributes of a file system.
Here, are some important File attributes used in OS:
• Name: It is the only information stored in a human-readable form.

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• Identifier: Every file is identified by a unique tag number within a file system known as an
identifier.
• Location: Points to file location on device.
• Type: This attribute is required for systems that support various types of files.
• Size: Attribute used to display the current file size.
• Protection: This attribute assigns and controls the access rights of reading, writing, and
executing the file.
• Time, date and security: It is used for protection, security, and also used for monitoring

File Type
It refers to the ability of the operating system to differentiate various types of files like text files, binary,
and source files. However, Operating systems like MS_DOS and UNIX has the following type of files:
Character Special File
It is a hardware file that reads or writes data character by character, like mouse, printer, and more.
Ordinary files
• These types of files stores user information.
• It may be text, executable programs, and databases.
• It allows the user to perform operations like add, delete, and modify.
Directory Files
Directory contains files and other related information about those files. Its basically a folder to hold and
organize multiple files.
Special Files
These files are also called device files. It represents physical devices like printers, disks, networks,
flash drive, etc.

Functions of File
• Create file, find space on disk, and make an entry in the directory.
• Write to file, requires positioning within the file
• Read from file involves positioning within the file
• Delete directory entry, regain disk space.
• Reposition: move read/write position.

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File Access Methods

File access is a process that determines the way that files are accessed and read into memory. Generally,
a single access method is always supported by operating systems. Though there are some operating
system which also supports multiple access methods.
Three file access methods are:
• Sequential access
• Direct random access
• Index sequential access
Sequential Access
In this type of file access method, records are accessed in a certain pre-defined sequence. In the
sequential access method, information stored in the file is also processed one by one. Most compilers
access files using this access method.
Random Access
The random access method is also called direct random access. This method allow accessing the record
directly. Each record has its own address on which can be directly accessed for reading and writing.
Index Sequential Access
This type of accessing method is based on simple sequential access. In this access method, an index is
built for every file, with a direct pointer to different memory blocks. In this method, the Index is
searched sequentially, and its pointer can access the file directly. Multiple levels of indexing can be
used to offer greater efficiency in access. It also reduces the time needed to access a single record.

Common types of file systems

FAT (File Allocation Table): An older file system used by older versions of Windows and other
operating systems.
NTFS (New Technology File System): A modern file system used by Windows. It supports features
such as file and folder permissions, compression, and encryption.
EXT (Extended File System): A file system commonly used on Linux and Unix-based operating
systems.
HFS (Hierarchical File System): A file system used by macOS.
APFS (Apple File System): A new file system introduced by Apple for their Macs and iOS devices.

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5.2. File System Layout

A file system in an operating system is organized into multiple layers, each responsible for different
aspects of file management and storage. Here are the key layers in a typical file system:
Application Programs: This is the topmost layer where users interact with files through applications.
It provides the user interface for file operations like creating, deleting, reading, writing, and modifying
files. Examples include text editors, file browsers, and command-line interfaces.
Logical File system – It manages metadata information about a file i.e includes all details about a file
except the actual contents of the file. It also maintains via file control blocks. File control block (FCB)
has information about a file – owner, size, permissions, and location of file contents.
File Organization Module – It has information about files, the location of files and their logical and
physical blocks. Physical blocks do not match with logical numbers of logical blocks numbered from 0
to N. It also has a free space that tracks unallocated blocks.

Basic File system – It Issues general commands to the device driver to read and write physical blocks
on disk. It manages the memory buffers and caches. A block in the buffer can hold the contents of the
disk block and the cache stores frequently used file system metadata.
I/O Control level – Device drivers act as an interface between devices and OS, they help to transfer
data between disk and main memory. It takes block number as input and as output, it gives low-level
hardware-specific instruction.
Devices Layer: The bottom most layer, consisting of the actual hardware devices. It performs the
actual reading and writing of data to the physical storage medium. This includes hard drives, SSDs,
optical disks, and other storage devices.

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5.3. Implementing Files

1. Contiguous allocation
If the blocks are allocated to the file in such a way that all the logical blocks of the file get the
contiguous physical block in the hard disk then such allocation scheme is known as contiguous
allocation.
In the image shown below, there are three files in the directory. The starting block and the length of
each file are mentioned in the table. We can check in the table that the contiguous blocks are assigned
to each file as per its need.
Advantages
• It is simple to implement.
• We will get Excellent read performance.
• Supports Random Access into files.
Disadvantages
• The disk will become fragmented.
• It may be difficult to have a file grow.

2. Linked List Allocation

Linked List allocation solves all problems of contiguous allocation. In linked list allocation, each file is
considered as the linked list of disk blocks. However, the disks blocks allocated to a particular file need
not to be contiguous on the disk. Each disk block allocated to a file contains a pointer which points to
the next disk block allocated to the same file.

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Advantages
• There is no external fragmentation with linked allocation.
• Any free block can be utilized in order to satisfy the file block requests.
• File can continue to grow as long as the free blocks are available.
• Directory entry will only contain the starting block address.
Disadvantages
• Random Access is not provided.
• Pointers require some space in the disk blocks.
• Any of the pointers in the linked list must not be broken otherwise the file will get corrupted.
• Need to traverse each block.

3. Linked List Allocation using Table in Memory

Single level linked Index Allocation
In index allocation, the file size depends on the size of a disk block. To allow large files, we have to
link several index blocks together. In linked index allocation,
• Small header giving the name of the file
• Set of the first 100 block addresses
• Pointer to another index block
For the larger files, the last entry of the index block is a pointer which points to another index block.
This is also called as linked schema.

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Advantage: It removes file size limitations

Disadvantage: Random Access becomes a bit harder
Multilevel Index Allocation
In Multilevel index allocation, we have various levels of indices. There are outer level index blocks
which contain the pointers to the inner level index blocks and the inner level index blocks contain the
pointers to the file data.
• The outer level index is used to find the inner level index.
• The inner level index is used to find the desired data block.
Advantage: Random Access becomes better and efficient.
Disadvantage: Access time for a file will be higher.

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4. Inodes
In UNIX based operating systems, each file is indexed by an Inode. Inode are the special disk block
which is created with the creation of the file system. The number of files or directories in a file system
depends on the number of Inodes in the file system.

An Inode includes the following information:

• Attributes (permissions, time stamp, ownership details, etc) of the file

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• A number of direct blocks which contains the pointers to first 12 blocks of the file.
• A single indirect pointer which points to an index block. If the file cannot be indexed entirely by
the direct blocks then the single indirect pointer is used.
• A double indirect pointer which points to a disk block that is a collection of the pointers to the
disk blocks which are index blocks. Double index pointer is used if the file is too big to be
indexed entirely by the direct blocks as well as the single indirect pointer.
• A triple index pointer that points to a disk block that is a collection of pointers. Each of the
pointers is separately pointing to a disk block which also contains a collection of pointers which
are separately pointing to an index block that contains the pointers to the file blocks

5.4. Principle of I/O Hardware

I/O devices can be divided into two categories
Block devices − A block device is one with which the driver communicates by sending entire blocks of
data. For example, Hard disks, USB cameras, Disk-On-Key etc.
Character devices − A character device is one with which the driver communicates by sending and
receiving single characters (bytes, octets). For example, serial ports, parallel ports, sounds cards etc.

Device Controllers
Device drivers are software modules that can be plugged into an OS to handle a particular device.
Operating System takes help from device drivers to handle all I/O devices.
The Device Controller works like an interface between a device and a device driver. I/O units
(Keyboard, mouse, printer, etc.) typically consist of a mechanical component and an electronic
component where electronic component is called the device controller.

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Communication to I/O Devices

The CPU must have a way to pass information to and from an I/O device. There are three approaches
available to communicate with the CPU and Device.
• Special Instruction I/O
• Memory-mapped I/O
• Direct memory access (DMA)

Special Instruction I/O

This uses CPU instructions that are specifically made for controlling I/O devices. These instructions
typically allow data to be sent to an I/O device or read from an I/O device.

Memory-mapped I/O
When using memory-mapped I/O, the same address space is shared by memory and I/O devices. The
device is connected directly to certain main memory locations so that I/O device can transfer block of
data to/from memory without going through CPU.

The advantage to this method is that every instruction which can access memory can be used to
manipulate an I/O device. Memory mapped IO is used for most high-speed I/O devices like disks,
communication interfaces.

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Direct Memory Access (DMA)

Slow devices like keyboards will generate an interrupt to the main CPU after each byte is transferred. If
a fast device such as a disk generated an interrupt for each byte, the operating system would spend
most of its time handling these interrupts. So a typical computer uses direct memory access (DMA)
hardware to reduce this overhead.

The operating system uses the

DMA hardware as follows
Step Description
1 Device driver is instructed to transfer disk data to a buffer address X.
2 Device driver then instruct disk controller to transfer data to buffer.
3 Disk controller starts DMA transfer.
4 Disk controller sends each byte to DMA controller.
5 DMA controller transfers bytes to buffer, increases the memory address, decreases the counter C
until C becomes zero.
6 When C becomes zero, DMA interrupts CPU to signal transfer completion.

Polling vs Interrupts I/O

A computer must have a way of detecting the arrival of any type of input. There are two ways that this
can happen, known as polling and interrupts. Both of these techniques allow the processor to deal with
events that can happen at any time and that are not related to the process it is currently running.

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Principle of I/O Software

I/O software is often organized in the following layers −
User Level Libraries − This provides simple interface to the user program to perform input and
output. For example, stdio is a library provided by C and C++ programming languages.
Kernel Level Modules − This provides device driver to interact with the device controller and device
independent I/O modules used by the device drivers.
Hardware − This layer includes actual hardware and hardware controller which interact with the
device drivers and makes hardware alive.

Device Drivers
Device drivers are software modules that can be plugged into an OS to handle a particular device.
Operating System takes help from device drivers to handle all I/O devices. A device driver performs the
following jobs −
• To accept request from the device independent software above to it.
• Interact with the device controller to take and give I/O and perform required error handling
• Making sure that the request is executed successfully

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Interrupt handlers
An interrupt handler, also known as an interrupt service routine or ISR, is a piece of software or more
specifically a callback function in an operating system or more specifically in a device driver, whose
execution is triggered by the reception of an interrupt.
When the interrupt happens, the interrupt procedure does whatever it has to in order to handle the
interrupt, updates data structures and wakes up process that was waiting for an interrupt to happen.

Device-Independent I/O Software

The basic function of the device-independent software is to perform the I/O functions that are common
to all devices and to provide a uniform interface to the user-level software.
Following is a list of functions of device-independent I/O Software:
• Uniform interfacing for device drivers
• Device naming- Mnemonic names mapped to Major and Minor device numbers
• Device protection
• Providing a device-independent block size
• Buffering because data coming off a device cannot be stored in final destination.
• Storage allocation on block devices
• Allocation and releasing dedicated devices
• Error Reporting

5.5. Disk Formatting

Disk formatting is a process to configure the data-storage devices such as hard-drive, floppy disk and
flash drive when we are going to use them for the very first time or we can say initial usage. Disk
formatting is usually required when new operating system is going to be used by the user. It is also
done when there is space issue and we require additional space for the storage of more data in the
drives. When we format the disk then the existing files within the disk is also erased.
We can perform disk formatting on both magnetic platter hard-drives and solid-state drives. Disk
formatting involves the following steps:

1. Low-level Formatting
Low level formatting is a type of physical formatting. It is the process of marking of cylinders and
tracks of the blank hard-disk. After this there is the division of tracks into sectors with the sector
markers. Now-a-days low-level formatting is performed by the hard-disk manufactures themselves.

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We have data in our hard-disk and when we perform low-level formatting in the presence of data in the
hard-disk all the data have been erased and it is impossible to recover that data. Some users make such
a format that they can avoid their privacy leakage. Otherwise low-level will cause damage to hard-disk
shortens the service-life.
Therefore, this formatting is not suggested to users.

2. Partitioning
As suggesting from the name, partitioning means divisions. Partitioning is the process of dividing the
hard-disk into one or more regions. The regions are called as partitions.
It can be performed by the users and it will affect the disk performance.

3. High-level Formatting
High-level formatting is the process of writing. Writing on a file system, cluster size, partition label,
and so on for a newly created partition or volume. It is done to erase the hard-disk and again installing
the operating system on the disk-drive.

Disk Arm Scheduling

'Disk Scheduling Algorithm' is an algorithm that keeps and manages input and output requests arriving
for the disk in a system. "Disk Scheduling Algorithms" in an operating system can be referred to as a
manager of a grocery store that manages all the incoming and outgoing requests for goods of that store.
He keeps a record of what is available in-store, what we need further, and manages the timetable of
transaction of goods.

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Key Terms Associated with Disk Scheduling

There are many terms that we need to know for a better understanding of Disk Scheduling. We are
going to have a brief look at each of them one by one:
Seek Time: As we know, the data may be stored on various blocks of disk. To access these data
according to the request, the disk arm moves and finds the required block. The time taken by the arm in
doing this search is known as "Seek Time".
Rotational Latency: The required data block needs to move at a particular position from where the
read/write head can fetch the data. So, the time taken in this movement is known as "Rotational
Latency". This rotational time should be as less as possible so, the algorithm that will take less time to
rotate will be considered a better algorithm.
Transfer Time: When a request is made from the user side, it takes some time to fetch these data and
provide them as output. This taken time is known as "Transfer Time".
Disk Access Time: It is defined as the total time taken by all the above processes. Disk access time =
(seek time + rotational latency time + transfer time)
Disk Response Time: The disk processes one request at a single time. So, the other requests wait in a
queue to finish the ongoing process of request. The average of this waiting time is called "Disk
Response Time".
Starvation: Starvation is defined as the situation in which a low-priority job keeps waiting for a long
time to be executed. The system keeps sending high-priority jobs to the disk scheduler to execute first.

Types of Disk Scheduling Algorithm in OS

1. FCFS disk scheduling algorithm
It stands for 'first-come-first-serve'. As the name suggests, the request that comes first will be processed
first and so on. The requests coming to the disk are arranged in a proper sequence as they arrive. Since
every request is processed in this algorithm, so there is no chance of 'starvation'.
Example: Suppose a disk having 200 tracks (0-199). The request sequence(82,170,43,140,24,16,190)
of the disk is shown as in the given figure and the head start is at request 50.
Explanation: In the image below, we can see the head starts at position 50 and moves to request 82.
After serving them the disk arm moves towards the second request which is 170 and then to the request
43 and so on. In this algorithm,, the disk arm will serve the requests in arriving order. In this way, all
the requests are served in arriving order until the process executes.
"Seek time" will be calculated by adding the head movement differences of all the requests:
Seek time= "(82-50) + (170-82) + (170-43) + (140-43) + (140-24) + (24-16) + (190-16) = 642
Advantages:

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• Implementation is easy.
• No chance of starvation.
Disadvantages:
• 'Seek time' increases.
• Not so efficient.

2. SSTF disk scheduling algorithm

It stands for 'Shortest seek time first'. As the name suggests, it searches for the request having the least
'seek time' and executes them first. This algorithm has less 'seek time' as compared to the FCFS
Algorithm.
Example: Suppose a disk has 200 tracks (0-199). The request sequence(82,170,43,140,24,16,190) are
shown in the given figure and the head position is at 50.

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Explanation: The disk arm searches for the request which will have the least difference in head
movement. So, the least difference is (50-43). Here the difference is not about the shortest value but it
is about the shortest time the head will take to reach the nearest next request. So, after 43, the head will
be nearest to 24, and from here the head will be nearest to request 16, After 16, the nearest request is
82, so the disk arm will move to serve to request 82 and so on.
Hence, Calculation of Seek Time = (50-43) + (43-24) + (24-16) + (82-16) + (140-82) + (170-140) +
(190-170) = 208
Advantages:
• In this algorithm, disk response time is less.
• More efficient than FCFS.
Disadvantages:
• Less speed of algorithm execution.
• Starvation can be seen.

3. SCAN disk scheduling algorithm:

In this algorithm, the head starts to scan all the requests in a direction and reaches the end of the disk.
After that, it reverses its direction and starts to scan again the requests in its path and serves them. Due
to this feature, this algorithm is also known as the "Elevator Algorithm".
Example: Suppose a disk has 200 tracks (0-199). The request sequence(82,170,43,140,24,16,190) is
shown in the given figure and the head position is at 50. The 'disk arm' will first move to the larger
values.

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Explanation: In the above image, we can see that the disk arm starts from position 50 and goes in a
single direction until it reaches the end of the disk i.e.- request position 199. After that, it reverses and
starts servicing in the opposite direction until reaches the other end of the disk. This process keeps
going on until the process is executed. Hence, the Calculation of 'Seek Time' will be like: (199-50) +
(199-16) =332
Advantages:
Implementation is easy.
Requests do not have to wait in a queue.
Disadvantage:
The head keeps going on to the end even if there are no requests in that direction.

4. C-SCAN disk scheduling algorithm

It stands for "Circular-Scan". This algorithm is almost the same as the Scan disk algorithm but one
thing that makes it different is that 'after reaching the one end and reversing the head direction, it starts
to come back. The disk arm moves toward the end of the disk and serves the requests coming into its
path.
After reaching the end of the disk it reverses its direction and again starts to move to the other end of
the disk but while going back it does not serve any requests.
Example: Suppose a disk having 200 tracks (0-199). The request sequence(82,170,43,140,24,16,190)
are shown in the given figure and the head position is at 50.

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Explanation: In the above figure, the disk arm starts from position 50 and reached the end(199), and
serves all the requests in the path. Then it reverses the direction and moves to the other end of the disk
i.e.- 0 without serving any task in the path.
After reaching 0, it will again go move towards the largest remaining value which is 43. So, the head
will start from 0 and moves to request 43 serving all the requests coming in the path. And this process
keeps going.
Hence, Seek Time will be
(199−50)+(199−0)+(43−0)=391
Advantages:
The waiting time is uniformly distributed among the requests.
Response time is good in it.
Disadvantages:
The time taken by the disk arm to locate a spot is increased here.
The head keeps going to the end of the disk.

5. LOOK the disk scheduling algorithm

In this algorithm, the disk arm moves to the 'last request' present and services them. After reaching the
last requests, it reverses its direction and again comes back to the starting point. It does not go to the
end of the disk, in spite, it goes to the end of requests.

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Example a disk having 200 tracks (0-199). The request sequence(82,170,43,140,24,16,190) are shown
in the given figure and the head position is at 50.

Explanation: The disk arm is starting from 50 and starts to serve requests in one direction only but in
spite of going to the end of the disk, it goes to the end of requests i.e.-190. Then comes back to the last
request of other ends of the disk and serves them. And again starts from here and serves till the last
request of the first side. Hence, Seek time =(190-50) + (190-16) =314
Advantages:
Starvation does not occur.
Since the head does not go to the end of the disk, the time is not wasted here.
Disadvantage:
The arm has to be conscious to find the last request.

Stable Storage
Stable storage is a classification of computer data storage technology that guarantees atomicity for any
given write operation and allows software to be written that is robust against some hardware and power
failures. To be considered atomic, upon reading back a just written-to portion of the disk, the storage
subsystem must return either the write data or the data that was on that portion of the disk before the
write operations.
Most computer disk drives are not considered stable storage because they do not guarantee atomic
write; an error could be returned upon subsequent read of the disk where it was just written to in lieu of
either the new or prior data.

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Multiple techniques have been developed to achieve the atomic property from weakly atomic devices
such as disks. Writing data to a disk in two places in a specific way is one technique and can be done
by application software.
Most often though, stable storage functionality is achieved by mirroring data on separate disks via
RAID technology (level 1 or greater). The RAID controller implements the disk writing algorithms that
enable separate disks to act as stable storage. The RAID technique is robust against some single disk
failure in an array of disks whereas the software technique of writing to separate areas of the same disk
only protects against some kinds of internal disk media failures such as bad sectors in single disk
arrangements.

Error Handling
Let us analyze the case below taking into consideration that a system user wants to read this file from
his or her local disc drive through an operating system’s functions of input-output. In this case, the
transistor and permanence failure will be discussed during these activities. Additionally, we will treat
this answer as being operating system and how the error-handling is handled by the OS.
Transient Failure
User Action: The user starts the process where a file read operation is being executed to open and
extract report.pdf content. With the aid of this operating systems file I/O API.
Transient Failure: When the user starts this process of reading content from the file, a transient failure
takes place whereby there is an interruption in connection on account of momentary change when
power fluctuates forcing disconnection off disc drive for some time.
Operating System Response (Error Handling): The Operating System for the movement detects that
there was a transient failure while talking to disc drive. Its error handling mechanisms are triggered like
buffer I/O and retries. The operating system will try again or performs retries to resume the
communication with disc drive, and continue file read operation from where it had been interrupted. It
may not be known to the user that this was a temporary malfunction since the operating system
automatically recovers from such transient failure
Permanent Failure
User Action: In this, the user starts for opening a file named data.csv on an external USB device with
help of operating systems’s I /O functions used to access files.
Permanent Failure: As we have seen permanent failure, is essentially resulted from hardware and
software elements. Therefore in a permanent failure, the external USB drive suffers an irreparable
physical wear-and –tear of its read and write head resulting to impossibility or difficulty by that
particular operating system accessing any data from such drive.

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Operating System Response (Error Handling): When the Operating System recognizes permanent
failure and tries to interact with a USB device, in this case Direct recovery from hardware deficiency
can not be made by operating systems. In reality, it provides the user an error code that indicates to
what real problem has resulted. Therefore, the error message can show that due to some reason an
external drive has been filled or because of this it cannot be accessed in reality. The user is also
recommended to test its drives connection or seek some consultant help for performing the data
recovery process, as this can resolve his/her problem in favor by making him replace faulty drive with a
new operative one.

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