Disk requests are received by a disk drive for cylinder 5, 25, 18, 3, 39, 8…

2007

Disk requests are received by a disk drive for cylinder 5, 25, 18, 3, 39, 8 and 35 in that order. A seek takes 5 msec per cylinder moved. How much seek time is needed to serve these requests for a Shortest Seek First (SSF) algorithm? Assume that the arm is at cylinder 20 when the last of these requests is made with none of the requests yet served

  1. A.

    125 msec

  2. B.

    295 msec

  3. C.

    575 msec

  4. D.

    750 msec

Attempted by 56 students.

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Correct answer: B

To solve this using Shortest Seek First (SSF), start at cylinder 20. Identify the nearest unserved request at each step. Sequence: 20 → 18 (dist 2) → 25 (dist 7) → 35 (dist 10) → 39 (dist 4) → 8 (dist 31) → 5 (dist 3) → 3 (dist 2). Total distance = 2 + 7 + 10 + 4 + 31 + 3 + 2 = 59 cylinders. Total seek time = 59 × 5 msec = 295 msec.

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