On the near-optimality of the shortest-latency-time-first drum scheduling discipline

For computer systems in which it is practical to determine the instantaneous drum position, a popular discipline for determining the sequence in which the records are to be accessed is the so-called shortest-latency-time-first, SLTF, discipline. When a collection of varying-length records is to be accessed from specified drum positions, it is known that the SLTF discipline does not necessarily minimize the drum latency time. However, we show that the total time to access the entire collection for any SLTF schedule is never as much as a drum revolution longer than a minimum latency schedule.

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