Device management is another major function of an operating system. In the device management task of the operating is to manage I/O and storage devices such as printers, card readers, tapes, disk and supporting devices such as the control unit and control channel.
The major tasks of the operating system with respect to device management are:
There are three different categories of devices. On the basis of these categories, the operating system will decide which process will get which devices and for how long.
There are majorly two types of devices under the categories mentioned above.
The storage devices can be of the following three different types: Serial access, Direct access.
This method is also known as a sequential access method. The data is accessed by starting from the beginning, then searched through in sequence, until the required information is found.
This method is very slow. Serial access is used in old magnetic tapes
It is also known as a random access device. The system can calculate where exactly the data is stored. The location can be directly accessed.
For example, hard disks, CDs and DVDs are the types of direct access devices.
The above discussion is summarized in the form of a PPT with animations below.
Note: Click within the slide area for animations. Clicking on the “next” slide button will not display any animation
Previous Next File Management Disk Scheduling