SCSI disk model for multimedia storage systems

Modern magnetic disks support advanced features, such as read-ahead and caching, to optimize disk access performance. However, most of the proposed disk models of multimedia storage systems in the literature are too simplified to consider the advanced features and result in inaccurate performance prediction. In this paper, we propose an accurate, detailed SCSI disk model customized for multimedia storage systems, and the methodologies of extracting the parameters of the proposed model. Disk throughput is analyzed based on the model and verified by experiments under various contexts. The proposed model and methodologies can benefit the multimedia storage system in many ways, such as performance prediction, file layout design and disk I/O scheduling policy.