A Comparative Analysis of Disk Scheduling Algorithms

Abstract

In an operating system, disk scheduling is the process of managing the I/O request to the secondary storage devices such as hard disk. The speed of the processor and primary memory has increased in a rapid way than the secondary storage. Seek time is the important factor in an operating system to get the best access time. For the better performance, speedy servicing of I/O request for secondary memory is very important. The goal of the disk-scheduling algorithm is to minimize the response time and maximize throughput of the system. This work analyzed and compared various basic disk scheduling techniques like First Come First Serve (FCFS), Shortest Seek Time First (SSTF), SCAN, LOOK, Circular SCAN (C-SCAN) and Circular LOOK (C-LOOK) along with the corresponding seek time. From the comparative analysis, the result show that C-LOOK algorithm give the least head movement and seek time in different cases as compared to other algorithm. Therefore, it maximizes the throughput for the storage devices.