Method and apparatus defining a miss list and producing dial-in hit ratios in a disk storage benchmark

Abstract

A method and apparatus for defining a random miss list and producing a desired hit ratio in a benchmark test of computer disk storage are disclosed. The disk area to be tested is divided into N tracks. A random miss list of L tracks is defined as specified by the invention. The tracks in the miss list are subdivided into groups, with each group having G tracks. Each one of a plurality of concurrent processes is assigned a different group of G tracks from the miss list. A pointer for each process is initialized to point to the first track in the corresponding group of G tracks. A plurality of input/output (I/O) operations are performed for each process, with each I/O operation being performed on the track pointed to by the pointer for the corresponding process. For each process, prior to each I/O operation that is performed after the first I/O operation, a random decision is made whether or not to increment the pointer belonging to the process. The probability of incrementing the pointer is equal to a desired miss ratio. By choosing the probability, the user can select any desired hit ratio. The addresses of the tracks in the miss list are more random, resulting in better, more reliable benchmark test results.