A Self Managing Secondary Memory system

  • Authors:

  • Manlio DeMartinis;G. Jack Lipovski;Stanley Y.W. Su;J. K. Watson

  • Affiliations:

  • Departamento de Circultos y Medldas, Universidad de Carabobo, Venezuela;Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Florida, Galnesville, Florida;Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Florida, Galnesville, Florida;Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Florida, Galnesville, Florida

  • Venue:
  • ISCA '76 Proceedings of the 3rd annual symposium on Computer architecture
  • Year:
  • 1976

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Abstract

A Self Managing Secondary Memory (SMSM) organization is proposed herein, in which hardware directly assists the storage, retrieval and management of arbitrary length records on such devices as fixed head discs or charge coupled devices (CCD's). This paper emphasizes some of the techniques used to implement an SMSM system. In an SMSM, fixed length words are organized into variable length records, and these records are packed into a file. The first word of the record, a label, can be associatively addressed to mark the record. Marked records can be output, erased, or a word or a collection of words can be inserted after the label of such records. Erased words are shifted to the bottom of memory as data words are packed upward, so that new records or extensions of old records can be inserted at the bottom of the file. In this system, although the file appears to be a single one dimensional array of words, it is actually stored on a number m of n word circular access memories, such as CCD's or tracks of a fixed head disc. Larger systems are implemented by increasing m. The access time for the entire system depends only on n. This architecture is self-managing in that no directories are kept, nor is software garbage collection or allocation necessary. The hardware replaces these functions. This appears to be a desirable direction for secondary memory architectures to develop, with special application to their use in computer networks. This paper discusses techniques for implementing an SMSM. These techniques were developed as part of the Context Addressed Segment Sequential Memory (CASSM) system. This paper therefore also describes that part of CASSM that, by itself, forms a useful SMSM. It is hoped that these techniques will be useful in the development of a new class of intelligent secondary memories to meet present and future needs of computing systems.