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Disk Speed vs. CPU Speed


A computer has a bus with a 5-nsec cycle time, during which it can read or write a 32-bit word from memory. The computer has an Ultra4-SCSI disk that uses the bus and runs at 160 Mbytes/sec. The CPU normally fetches and executes one 32-bit instruction ever 1 nsec. How much does the disk slow down the CPU?

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The machine normally operates at 1/(1*10^-9)= 1000 MIPS. But the data coming from the disk needs to be placed in memory, and uses the bus. 160Mb/sec implies a rate of ...

Solution Summary

The solution gives detailed steps on finding the amount that the disk slow down the CPU.