NAME

rk − RK11/RK03 or RK05 disk

DESCRIPTION

Each rk special file refers to an entire disk as a single sequentially-addressed file.  Its 256-word blocks are numbered 0 to 4871.  Minor device numbers are drive numbers on one controller. 

Refer to the ULTRIX-11 System Management Guide for more information about logical disk names and for disk sizes. 

The rk files discussed above access the disk via the system’s normal buffering mechanism and may be read and written without regard to physical disk records.  There is also a ’raw’ interface which provides for direct transmission between the disk and the user’s read or write buffer.  A single read or write call results in exactly one I/O operation and therefore raw I/O is considerably more efficient when many words are transmitted.  The names of the raw RK files begin with rrk and end with a number which selects the same disk as the corresponding rk file. 

In raw I/O the buffer must begin on a word boundary, and counts should be a multiple of 512 bytes (a disk block).  Likewise seek calls should specify a multiple of 512 bytes. 

RESTRICTIONS

In raw I/O read and write truncate file offsets to 512-byte block boundaries, and write writes data on the tail of incomplete blocks.  Thus, in programs that are likely to access raw devices, read, write, and lseek should always deal in 512-byte multiples. 

FILES

/dev/rk#, /dev/rrk#

SEE ALSO

ULTRIX-11 System Management Guide
ULTRIX-11 Software Technical Description