Self-Tuning Disk Drives Eliminate Performance Bottlenecks and Heighten ROI

Self-Tuning Disk Drives Eliminate Performance
Bottlenecks and Heighten ROIBy Drew Robb thJuly 28 , 2005
Executive SummaryThe size of today's hard drives boggles the mind. 40GB is the norm and disks ten times that size are emerging. Coupled withthis surge in disk capacity is an explosion in file sizes. Ten years ago, the average drive contained mainly word documents, each afew KB in size. Now, multi-MB PowerPoints, MP3s and PDFs litter the hard drive.The problem is that drive I/O speed has not kept upthe pace. As a result, it has developed into a serious bottleneck in system performance.Consider the facts: Processor speeds are measured in billions of operations per second; memory is measured in millions ofoperations per second; yet disk speed remains pegged at hundreds of operations per second.This disparity is minimized as long asthe drive's read/write head can just go to a single location on the disk and read off all the information. But the huge gulf in speedbetween a disk and the CPU/memory is a severe problem when the disk is badly fragmented. Instead of taking half a second toopen, a badly fragmented text document can take half a minute, and graphics-laden PowerPoints much longer. Not all of the extrawork, however, is readily noticeable to the end user. Even after the user sees the opening screen, the system can still be working inthe background to assemble all the remaining pieces. File fragmentation not only lowers performance, it leads to a catalog of woessuch as slower virus scans and backups, databases corruption and premature hardware failures.In this white paper, we discuss how fragmentation affects today's larger hard drives and files sizes, what this does to the systemas a whole, and how this crippling bottleneck can be eliminated automatically on every server, workstation and laptop in theenterprise using automated defragmentation software.
Computer Heal Thy Self A good technician can keep any system running. A better one designs systems so he doesn't have to.While a Formula One racecar needs mechanics on hand to tune it before each race, commercial automobile manufacturers build self-tuning engines thatconstantly monitor and adjust engine performance without a trip to the shop. The driver simply drives and doesn't have to worryabout what is happening under the hood.IT managers need the same types of systems to achieve any acceptable level of performance and sanity. There are too manydevices running too many processes for anyone to directly observe and manage. Yet all systems must be kept, not just frombreaking down, but operating at peak performance. Equipment manufacturers and software developers, therefore, are researchingand developing self-healing systems:. IBM has its "autonomic computing" initiative which aims to create self-configuring, self-managing, self-optimizing, self-protecting, self-healing systems . High-end storage systems from Hitachi Data Systems and EMC Corporation report back to their manufacturers'support centers for repair or tweaking without customer intervention . IBM, Microsoft and Sybase offer self-healing databases . Desktop applications automatically check for and install the latest security patches or updates . Windows adjusts its paging file size as needed to meet usage demands.
Disk drives also have some self-healing properties. For example, the firmware will detect bad sectors and block them off,something that once had to be done manually. But there is another vital area - file fragmentation - that needs to be continuallymonitored and repaired to keep equipment and applications operating at peak levels. And, as with other aspects of IT management,it only works well if it is done on an automated rather than a manual basis.The Disk is the Performance Bottleneck File fragmentation was originally a feature, not a bug. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) developed it as part of its RSX-11operating system as a revolutionary means to handle lack of disk space. But much has changed in the thirty five years since thedebut of the RSX-11. At that time, a typical hard disk boasted a capacity of 2.5MB, and the entire disk had a read time of four minutes.Compare that to what is available today:. The Hitachi Data Systems Lightning 9900 V Series scales to over 140TB and the EMC Symmetrix DMX3000 goesup to 170TB . 40GB is now standard on low end Dell PCs and you can choose drives ten times that size ... [download for more]