Microbenchmark-based Extraction of Local and Global Disk Characteristics
Nisha Talagala, Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau and D. Patterson
EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-99-1063
1999
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1999/CSD-99-1063.pdf
Obtaining timely and accurate information about the low-level characteristics of disk drives presents a problem for system design and implementation alike. This paper presents a collection of three disk microbenchmarks which combine to empirically extract a relevant subset of disk geometry and performance parameters in an efficient and accurate manner, without requiring a priori information of the drive being measured. Novel among the benchmarks is the utilization of linearly increased stride to glean a spectrum of low-level details including head-switch and cylinder-switch times while factoring out rotational effects. A bandwidth benchmark extracts the zone profile of disks, revealing that the previously preferred linear model of zone bandwidth is less accurate than a quadratic model. A seek profile is also generated, completing a trio of benchmarks. Data is collected from a broad class of modern disks, including five SCSI, two IDE, and two simulated drives.
BibTeX citation:
@techreport{Talagala:CSD-99-1063,
Author = {Talagala, Nisha and Arpaci-Dusseau, Remzi H. and Patterson, D.},
Title = {Microbenchmark-based Extraction of Local and Global Disk Characteristics},
Institution = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
Year = {1999},
URL = {http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1999/6275.html},
Number = {UCB/CSD-99-1063},
Abstract = {Obtaining timely and accurate information about the low-level characteristics of disk drives presents a problem for system design and implementation alike. This paper presents a collection of three disk microbenchmarks which combine to empirically extract a relevant subset of disk geometry and performance parameters in an efficient and accurate manner, without requiring a priori information of the drive being measured. Novel among the benchmarks is the utilization of linearly increased stride to glean a spectrum of low-level details including head-switch and cylinder-switch times while factoring out rotational effects. A bandwidth benchmark extracts the zone profile of disks, revealing that the previously preferred linear model of zone bandwidth is less accurate than a quadratic model. A seek profile is also generated, completing a trio of benchmarks. Data is collected from a broad class of modern disks, including five SCSI, two IDE, and two simulated drives.}
}
EndNote citation:
%0 Report %A Talagala, Nisha %A Arpaci-Dusseau, Remzi H. %A Patterson, D. %T Microbenchmark-based Extraction of Local and Global Disk Characteristics %I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley %D 1999 %@ UCB/CSD-99-1063 %U http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1999/6275.html %F Talagala:CSD-99-1063