A Record and File Partitioning Model

One of the main objectives in the design of
a file system is the reduction of storage and data 
transfer costs.  This paper presents a model in which
several  requests access the file system, and each 
request requires information from one or more variable
length data-items.  The probabilities of access 
and the distribution of each data-item's length are assumed
to be known, and to be mutually independent. 
The file system uses one or more storage devices, and
each record may be partitioned into subrecords 
that are stored on different devices.  One of the subrecords
is designated as the primary record; when 
a request for a record is made, the primary record is
first accessed, and other subrecords are accessed 
only if the pertinent information is not stored in the
primary record.  The model that is presented in 
this paper, both as a nonlinear programming model and
a mixed integer programming model, is a very general 
one; several types of file systems may be derived from
it by an appropriate selection of its parameters. 
 This model has already been used in the optimization of
library routines' storage at a large scale operating 
system.

CACM January, 1977

Babad, J. M.

file system, file design, file partitioning, record partitioning

3.73

CA770103 JB January 3, 1978  12:28 AM

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