Storing continuous media objects to multizone recording disks using multirate smoothing technique

Since multizone recording disks have different bandwidths and capacities depending on the zone in use, data placement schemes for traditional constant angular density disks are not suitable for multizone recording disks. In this paper, we propose a new block placement algorithm for multizone recording disks used for continuous media servers. The proposed scheme exploits the bandwidth-saving effect of smoothing variable bit rate data before storing them. The diversity of zone bandwidths in multizone recording disks enables it possible to achieve large smoothing effect using relatively small buffer space. Variable bit rate data blocks of an object are smoothed using multiple smoothing rates which are bandwidths of zones multiplied by the service time assigned to the object and are stored into the corresponding zones. This multirate smoothing technique decreases the buffer space required to provide deterministic service to clients. Simulation results show that a proper restructuring of blocks according to the smoothing algorithm results in dramatic performance enhancement in continuous media servers.