1. Storage and File Organization

Question 1

Volatile storage: ___

Example: ___

Answer 1

Loses contents when power is switched off

RAM

Question 2

Non-Volatile storage: ___

Example: ___

Answer 2

Contents persist even when power is switched off

ROM (HDD)

Question 3

Storage Hierarchy (6 levels)

Answer 3

Cache
Main Memory (RAM)
Flash Memory (flash drive and SSD)
Magnetic Memory (HDD)
Optical Disk (CDs or DVDs)
Magnetic Tapes

Question 4

On an HDD each surface of a ___ is divided into ___ that are divided into ___

Answer 4

Platter
Tracks
Sectors

Question 5

On an HDD a sector is the smallest unit of ___ that can be ___

Answer 5

Data

Read or written

Question 6

On an HDD a disk controller represents the ___ between the ___ and the ___

Answer 6

Interfaces
Computer System
Disk Drive Hardware

Question 7

Access time is the time it takes ___

Answer 7

From when a read or write request is issued to when data transfer begins

Question 8

Seek time is the time it takes to ___

Answer 8

Reposition the arm over the correct track

Question 9

Rotational latency is the time it takes for ___

Answer 9

The sector to be accessed to appear under the head

Question 10

Data-transfer rate is the rate at which ___

Answer 10

Data can be retrieved from or stored to the disk

Question 11

Disk block is a ___

Answer 11

A logical unit for storage allocation and retrieval0

Question 12

Sequential access pattern represents:
1- Successive Requests are for ____
2- Disk seek required for ___

Answer 12

1- Successive disk block

2- First block only

Question 13

Sequential access pattern represents:
1- Successive Requests are for ____
2- Disk seek required for ___

Transfer rates are low since a lot of time is wasted in ___

Answer 13

1- Blocks that can be anywhere on the disk
2- Each access
# Seeks

Question 14

I/O operations per second (IOPS) represents the ___

Answer 14

Number of random block reads that a disk can support per second

Question 15

Mean time to failure (MTTF) represents the average time the ___

Answer 15

Disk is expected to run continuously without any failure

Question 16

Disk is expected to run continuously without any failure

Answer 16

Disk organization techniques that manage a large numbers of disks

Question 17

RAID provide a view of a single disk of:
1- High ___ and high ____ by using multiple disks in ____
2- High ___ by storing data ___, so that data can be recovered if a disk ____

Answer 17

1- Capacity / Speed / Parallel

2- Reliability / Redundantly / Fails

Question 18

Mirroring is the process of ___

Answer 18

Duplicating every disk

Question 19

Block-level striping relies on ___

Answer 19

Writing consecutive blocks on different disks, in the hopes of running requests in parallel in the future

Question 20

RAID 0: ___
RAID 1: ___
RAID 5: ___
RAID 6: ___

Answer 20

0 - Block Stripping
1 - Morrored Disks
5 - Block-Interleaved Distributed Parity
6 - Equal to 5 but stores two error correction blocks (P,Q) instead of a single parity block

Question 21

When to choose each level of RAID?
0 - \_\_\_
1 - \_\_\_
5 - \_\_\_
6 - \_\_\_

Answer 21

0 - Data safety is not important
1 - Better write perfomance than 5 but higher storage cost
5 - For applications where writes are sequential and large, and need high storage
6 - Data safety is very important

Question 22

File organization in a ___ manner bennefits ___

Answer 22

Sequential

Disk block access

Question 23

HDD speeds benefit from ___

Answer 23

Sequential Data

Question 24

In terms of seek time, SSDs ___

Answer 24

do not have it

Question 25

RAID means ___

Answer 25

redundant arrays of independent disks

Question 26

RAID can help improve:

• Reliability via ___
• Performance via ___

Answer 26

. Redundancy (several copies)

. Parallelism

Question 27

RAID level 0 refers to disk arrays with striping at the ____

but without any ___

Answer 27

. level of blocks

. redundancy

Question 28

RAID level 1 refers to disk ____ with block stripping

Answer 28

mirroring

Question 29

RAID level 5 refers to ___

Answer 29

block-interleaved distributed parity

Question 30

Types of hardware failures:

• Latent ___
• Data ____
• Hot ___

Answer 30

Failures
Scrubbing
Swapping

Question 31

Techniques to Optimize Disk-Block Acess:

• B___
• R___
• D___
• F___

Answer 31

Buffering
Read-ahead
Disk-arm-scheduling
File organization

Question 32

Fixed-Length Records represent records with ___, while Variable-Length Records arise in the form of ___, record types that allow ___ and record types that allow ___

Answer 32

Fixed size
Multiple records
Variable length (like strings)
Repeating fields

Question 33

Heap file Organization places records ___

Answer 33

Anywhere in the file system where there is free space

Question 34

Sequential File Organization places records ___

Answer 34

in a sequential order according to a search-key

Question 35

In Table partitioning, records in a relation can be ___ that are ___

Answer 35

Partitioned into smaller relations

Stored separately

Question 36

Data dictionary stores metadata such as:

• Information about ___
• ___ and accounting information
• ___ and descriptive data
• Physical file ___ information
• Information about ___

Answer 36

Relations
User
Statistical
Organization
Indices

Question 37

The buffer manager is responsible for giving ___ from ___ to ___

Answer 37

Blocks
Disk
Programs

Question 38

Column-Oriented Storage store each attribute of a relation ___

Answer 38

Separately