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External Searching

External searching is the process of accessing and sorting data stored in external storage like a hard disk rather than main memory. Data from external sources is slower to access than internal memory. B-trees are commonly used to organize data for efficient external searching since they can stay resident on disk. Buffering is used to temporarily store data as it moves between the processor and peripheral devices to smooth out differences in their transfer rates and reduce processing switching overhead from frequent small transfers.

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42 views2 pages

External Searching

External searching is the process of accessing and sorting data stored in external storage like a hard disk rather than main memory. Data from external sources is slower to access than internal memory. B-trees are commonly used to organize data for efficient external searching since they can stay resident on disk. Buffering is used to temporarily store data as it moves between the processor and peripheral devices to smooth out differences in their transfer rates and reduce processing switching overhead from frequent small transfers.

Uploaded by

Gagan Bansal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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External Searching

The process of accessing a task or sorting data from external storage (outside main memory) is
known as External Searching or External Memory Searching. External memory sources may
be a hard disk, a network file server with external storage, or a solid state disk. Data managed
from external sources to the main memory has speed as one of the main limiting factors. As
such, data has to be organized and accessed in a way that will optimize the ultimate speed of the
process.

In Internal search , data structure is kept in RAM but External search locates and retrieve records
stored in hard disks. B-trees are designed for external searches. B-trees stay in the hard disk.

Buffer : a buffer is a region of memory used to temporarily hold data while it is being moved
from one place to another.

I/O buffering The process of temporarily storing data that is passing between a processor and a
peripheral. The usual purpose is to smooth out the difference in rates at which the two devices
can handle data.

I/O Buffering

Unbuffered I/O

 Data transfered from (to) user directly to (from) device (no intermediate storage)
 Each read or write causes an actual (physical) I/O operation
 run file manager and device handler for each transfer, could cause very high process
switching overheads (when transferring characters for instance - possible to get process
switch per character)
 Not the best way - clearly - any alternatives ?

Buffered I/O

 No direct transfer from (to) user to (from) I/O device


 Used to smooth peaks in I/O traffic
 Particularly useful for dealing with scenarios where there is a difference in data transfer
rates - linking fast devices to slow ones for instance
 Also useful for storing data temporarily ...
 OUTPUT : User's output data transferred to OS output buffer.
User continues operation, and is only suspended when the buffer becomes full
 INPUT : OS reads ahead for user. Read normally satisfied from buffer. User is blocked if
buffer is empty
The various I/O buffering techniques are as follows:

1. Single buffering:

 When a user process issues an I/O request, the O.S assigns a buffer in the system portion
of main memory to the operation.

2. Double buffering

 An improvement over single buffering is by assigning two system buffers to the


operations.
 A process transfers data to one buffer while operating system empties the other

3. Circular buffer

 Double buffering may be inadequate, if the process performs rapid burst of I/O. When
two or more buffers are used.
 The collection of buffers is called as a circular buffer, with each buffer being one unit in
the circular buffer.

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