CS6400 - Exam Study Questions Solved 100% Correct |
Verified Answers
Hard Disk - ✔✔A non-volatile storage device where the bulk of the data and applications are
stored. Characterized by low cost, relatively slow access speed (latency between 2-10 ms) and
large size (typically in the TB)
Main Memory - ✔✔A volatile storage device which stores frequently used program
instructions to increase the general speed of a system. Characterized by high cost, relatively
small amount of storage but fast access speed (latency between 15-90 ns) and small size
(typically in the GB)
Cache - ✔✔A volatile storage device which typically sits on the CPU. Characterized by very
small amount of storage but very fast access speed (latency typically 4-5 CPU cycles) and very
small size (typically 32 KB for L1, 256 KB for L2)
Bus - ✔✔Transports data from the disk to main memory (and then back)
Platter - ✔✔The circular disk on which magnetic data is stored in a hard disk drive
Sector - ✔✔The smallest physical unit that could be transported from the disk to main
memory
Track - ✔✔The thin concentric circular strips of sectors
Cylinder - ✔✔A division of data in a disk drive, concept is concentric, hollow, cylindrical slices
through the platters, collecting the respective circular tracks aligned through the stack of
platters.
, Head - ✔✔A device that reads and writes data in a hard drive by manipulating the magnetic
medium that composes the surface of an associated disk platter.
Block - ✔✔The standard physical part of the disk that is transferred - a sector or group of
sectors
Unspanned representation - ✔✔To make sure a record fits on a block; if this means there is
unused space that cannot possibly be used for another record, so be it
Spanned representation - ✔✔To straddle a record across two blocks; there is more legwork
to do this but it takes less space
File - ✔✔Consist of multiple blocks chained together by address pointers
Page Fault - ✔✔When the OS looks for data in virtual memory but cannot find it; it then
retrieves the data from disk and places it in memory
Block transfer - ✔✔The strategy of transferring not just the sought-after block, but a number
of surrounding blocks, in the hope that these blocks will be needed soon as well
LRU - ✔✔A buffer management strategy in which the least recently used items first are
discarded first
MRU - ✔✔A buffer management strategy in which the most recently used items are
discarded first
Heap - ✔✔A file containing an unsorted array of blocks. On average, requires N/2 data
blocks to find a given record.
Verified Answers
Hard Disk - ✔✔A non-volatile storage device where the bulk of the data and applications are
stored. Characterized by low cost, relatively slow access speed (latency between 2-10 ms) and
large size (typically in the TB)
Main Memory - ✔✔A volatile storage device which stores frequently used program
instructions to increase the general speed of a system. Characterized by high cost, relatively
small amount of storage but fast access speed (latency between 15-90 ns) and small size
(typically in the GB)
Cache - ✔✔A volatile storage device which typically sits on the CPU. Characterized by very
small amount of storage but very fast access speed (latency typically 4-5 CPU cycles) and very
small size (typically 32 KB for L1, 256 KB for L2)
Bus - ✔✔Transports data from the disk to main memory (and then back)
Platter - ✔✔The circular disk on which magnetic data is stored in a hard disk drive
Sector - ✔✔The smallest physical unit that could be transported from the disk to main
memory
Track - ✔✔The thin concentric circular strips of sectors
Cylinder - ✔✔A division of data in a disk drive, concept is concentric, hollow, cylindrical slices
through the platters, collecting the respective circular tracks aligned through the stack of
platters.
, Head - ✔✔A device that reads and writes data in a hard drive by manipulating the magnetic
medium that composes the surface of an associated disk platter.
Block - ✔✔The standard physical part of the disk that is transferred - a sector or group of
sectors
Unspanned representation - ✔✔To make sure a record fits on a block; if this means there is
unused space that cannot possibly be used for another record, so be it
Spanned representation - ✔✔To straddle a record across two blocks; there is more legwork
to do this but it takes less space
File - ✔✔Consist of multiple blocks chained together by address pointers
Page Fault - ✔✔When the OS looks for data in virtual memory but cannot find it; it then
retrieves the data from disk and places it in memory
Block transfer - ✔✔The strategy of transferring not just the sought-after block, but a number
of surrounding blocks, in the hope that these blocks will be needed soon as well
LRU - ✔✔A buffer management strategy in which the least recently used items first are
discarded first
MRU - ✔✔A buffer management strategy in which the most recently used items are
discarded first
Heap - ✔✔A file containing an unsorted array of blocks. On average, requires N/2 data
blocks to find a given record.
