This homework is due to the instructor by email (attachment) before the beginning of next class session. Partial credit may be awarded for an incorrect answer if you show your work. First, lets look at a detailed specification for a computer that you might be considering buying: CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 Processor (Quad Core, 6MB, 3.2GHz, 65W) Hard Drive: 3.5 inch 500GB 7200rpm, 10 ms access time RAM: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3L Memory Front-Side Bus: 533 MHz Optical drive: 16X DVD+/-RW SATA, Data Only Display: Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800): not included in the deal. Networking: 802.11g wireless Mini-card, 100 Mb/s Ethernet, 56kb/s v.92 modem Battery: 28 Whr Lithium Ion Operating System: Windows 8 Professional, Media, 64-bit, English 1. If you buy some 4.7GB write-once DVD-R disks that can be written by the DVD+/-R/RW drive, how many disks would you need to buy to back up a full hard drive once (assume no compression)? At 30 cents per DVD-R disk, how much would a full backup cost? At 10 minutes per DVD-R disk, how long would a full backup take? 2. Now, let's see how much stuff that hard drive can hold. Assume you have access to the following information stored for all 320 million people in the United States Name: 45 characters Phone Number: 10 characters Library Card Number: 9 characters Unpaid Fines: one 4-byte number and that each character is stored in one byte. Would all of this data fit on the hard drive of the computer described above? If not, how big a hard drive would you need? If so, what fraction of the disk would this fill? 3. Now lets see how long it would take to read that much data off the disk. Assume that you access the data in a random order, and that you start a new disk access for each person. How long would it take to add up the library fines for all 324 million people? Could this be done in a second? In a minute? In an hour? In a day? In a month? In a year? 4. Assume for the sake of comparison that all of this data could fit in RAM (it may not; you should convince yourself of that). How long would it take the processor to perform 324 million additions if it can perform one addition instruction for every two clock cycles (this means that 3.2 GHz equates to 1,600 MIPS because 3.2 GHz is 3,200 million cycles)? Could this be done in a second? In a minute? In an hour? In a day? In a month? In a year? Note for this question, you are not required to calculate the time for transfering the data from RAM to CPU. Also note that ''quad core'' means 4 CPUs. From these answers, you should be able to conclude that the processor is faster than the hard drive. Read the section in the book about "virtual memory," and then you should be able to explain how virtual memory helps to accommodate the mismatch.
You may submit a hard copy or an electronic copy. If you elect to submit an electronic copy, Please name your homework file as FirstName_LastName_HW1.ext where "ext" is your file extension which can be doc, docx, rtf, pdf, xls, txt, etc., then email your homework to the instructor at wuyj {at} lsu {dot} edu.
Grading rubric:
Each question is worth 25 points. For each question, points are to be deducted according to the type of mistakes. Typical mistake types are shown below. Atypical mistake types will be evaulated seperately.
Useful resources: