Question: Using the disk drive specifications given in Exercise 8.11, calculate the time required to read a 10MB file assuming Data from in Exercise 8.11 At

Using the disk drive specifications given in Exercise 8.11, calculate the time required to read a 10MB file assuming

Data from in Exercise 8.11

At the end of 2004, the fastest disk drive I could find specifications for was the Maxtor Atlas. This drive had a nominal capacity of 73.4GB using 4 platters (8 surfaces) or 9.175GB/surface. Assume there are 16,384 tracks with an average of 1170 sectors/track and 512 bytes/sector.3 The disk turns at 15,000 rpm. The track-to-track seek time is 0.4 ms and the average seek time is 3.6 ms. How long will it take on average to read a 6MB file, assuming that the first track of the file is randomly placed on the disk, that the entire file lies on contiguous tracks, and that the file completely fills each track on which it is found. Show your calculations.


(a) The file is stored on a series of contiguous tracks, as few tracks as possible.


(b) The file is spread randomly across the disk in 8KB clusters.

Show your calculations.

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