Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory – Storage accessing and control – Control technique
Reexamination Certificate
1998-01-05
2001-06-26
Kim, Matthew (Department: 2186)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory
Storage accessing and control
Control technique
C711S163000, C711S167000, C711S156000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06253296
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to disk block allocation optimization methodology and applications.
2. Background Information
In the art of computer systems, many problems involve optimizing disk block allocations. For example, in the past decade, performance of microprocessor based computer systems have increased dramatically. In particular, the operating speed of microprocessors have increased from the meager 16 MHz to well over 200 MHz. This trend is expected to continue without abatement. Correspondingly, while not as dramatic, performance of system and input/output (I/O) buses have also improved substantially, ensuring the microprocessors have adequate data to work with and kept busy. However, except for the improvement provided by buffering etc., the performance of disk drive has lagged behind. As a result, users are often deprived of the full benefit of the increased performance by the microprocessors. As a result, when starting up an application or booting up an operating system, because the large majority of time is often spent on loading the application or operating system routines into memory from a disk drive, a user often does not see significant difference in performance whether the user is using a system equipped with a 100 MHz microprocessor or a 200 MHz microprocessor. Thus, further improvement in disk drive performance is desirable, and as will be disclosed in more detail below, the present invention provides the desired improvement in disk drive performance as well as other desirable results, which will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, upon reading the detailed description to follow.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An apparatus is equipped with a disk block reallocator that operates to generate an improved alternate disk block allocation to a current disk block allocation, if possible. The disk block reallocator includes a reallocation optimizer that operates to generate the improved alternate disk block allocation employing a model to represent a sequence of accesses against the current disk block allocation, and a number of model pruning criteria to prune the model.
In one embodiment, the disk block reallocator further includes a tracer that operates to trace the sequence of accesses, and a reallocation engine that operates to effectuate the alternate disk block allocation, if generated.
In one embodiment, the disk block reallocator is a standalone utility. In another embodiment, the disk block reallocator is embodied as an integral part of an installation utility of an application. In yet another embodiment, the tracer is embodied as an integral part of an operating system, whereas the remainder of the disk block reallocator is embodied as a standalone complementary utility to the tracer.
In one embodiment, the apparatus is a computer system, and the disk block reallocator is implemented using programming instructions.
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Coulson Richard L.
Grimsrud Knut S.
Blakely , Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman LLP
Intel Corporation
Kim Matthew
Tzeng Fred F.
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