3390 DISKS AND CHANNEL SPEEDS

3390 disk information

Every 3390 disk volume contains 56,664 bytes per track, 15 tracks per cylinder and 849,960 Bytes per
Cylinder. The terms 'track' and 'cylinder' come from old pre-raid disks, which were like 8 old fashioned
vinyl records stacked in a pile, with a set of vertically fixed read/write heads which moved in and out of
them. The disks had recording surfaces on both sides. Of the 16 surfaces, one surface was used for
control information which left 15 for data. A 'track' was the amount of data which could be read from a
single surface in one revolution, without moving the heads. Think of it as the needle on the vinyl record
doing one revolution. A 'cylinder' could be read from all 15 surfaces without moving the heads. This was
quite important, as a cylinder could be read quite quickly, without any mechanical movement. The
diagram might help explain
Modern disks use FBA storage, but they have to emulate 3390 CKD format, so the terms 'track' and
'cylinder' are still used.

3390 disk numbers

Model Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 9 Model 27 Model 54 EAV
Tracks per Volume 16,695 33,390 50,085 150,255 491,400 982,800 up to 3,940,020
Cylinders per Volume 1,113 2,226 3,339 10,017 32,760 65,520 up to 262,668
Bytes per Volume 946 MB 1.89 GB 2.84 GB 8.51 GB 27.84 GB 55.6 GB up to 223 GB
IBM raised the bar on volume sizes with z/OS V1R10. Extended Address Volumes (EAV) can hold
between 65521 and 262668 cylinders. The cylinder addressing now becomes CCCCcccH where CCCCH
is the old addressing system with an extra three ccc cylinder addresses added. Datasets are defined as
EAV-eligible, which means that they can be allocated into the cylinder space above the 65521 mark. This
is defined as 'cylinder managed space' while the area up to the 65521 mark is 'track managed space'. By
my calculations, that means an EAV volume can hold just over 223 GB.
Cylinder managed EAV-elligible datasets need extra VTOC information, so two new DSCBs are also
introduced, the F8 DSCB and the F9 DSCB. The F8 DSCB is the EAV equivalent of an F1 DSCB, while
the F9DSCB can contain pointers to F3 DSCBs
FDReport provides canned reports to get data about EAV volumes, see the FDReport page for details.
While a 3390-3 disk can store 2.84 GB, you will not get that amount of data on it. Each disk has to contain
a Volume Table of Contents (VTOC), a VTOC index, and a VSAM VOLUME DATASET (VVDS).
Typically, these require 270 tracks, 14 tracks and 30 tracks respectively. The disk also has a single track
self describing label. That lot uses up 315 tracks, or about 18 MB. Then, data is stored on each track in
blocks, with inter block gaps in between. Best case for efficient space use is generally half track blocking,
which is 27,998 bytes per block, or 55,996 usable bytes per track. The sum is (50,085-315)*55,996 =
2.787 GB. So that means you can store about 2.79 GB of user data on a 3390-3 disk.

Initialising disks
You define a VTOC and Index when you initialise a volume with ICKDSF. A typical command would look
like

 INIT UNIT(D615) VOLID(D3D615) VTOC(1,0,270) -

  INDEX(0,1,14) VFY(OLDVOL) NODESEXIST

The VFY statement is a verify to check the old label on the volume, this makes it less likely to initialise the
wrong volume. The NO-DS-EXIST parameter means do not re-imitialise the volume if any datasets exist
on it, other than the VTOC and VVDS. You installation may have set thos by default, on which case it
could be overridden with DSEXIST. You need the volume off-line to all systems before initialising it. Note
that the ICKDSF statement does not make the disk a 3390. This happens when the disks are logically
configured in the hardware.

Allocating a VVDS
The system will allocate a VVDS for you the first time a VSAM file is allocated on a disk, but the default
system VVDS can be too small. You can allocate a VVDS yourself using IDCAMS commands

 DEFINE CLUSTER -
    (NAME(SYS1.VVDS.Vvolser) -
    VOLUMES(volser) -
    NONINDEXED -
    TRACKS(60 15)) -
    CATALOG(CATALOG.master.name)

You need to substitute your own volser, and catalog name. Be aware that a VVDS which is too big can
cause performance issues. There are no recommendations for a VVDS size, but it will depend on the
number of datasets on a volume, not the volume size. For example, if a 200GB EAV volume contains a
few very large databases, then the default value will be fine.

OS/390 CHANNEL SPEEDS

FICON
16 Gb FICON express (FIbre CONnection) supports up to 16,384 device addresses under a single
channel. Bandwidth is 1024 MB/s. Ficon will also handle mixed block size IO much better than ESCON,
which tends to favour large blocks. FICON supports multiple IOs per channel and will support 10km or
20km native. Various channel extender options exist, including the CNT Ultranet Storage Director
eXtended (now part of McData) that can extend both FICON and ESCON channels to an indefinite
distance.

ESCON
Almost obsolete, ESCON is a fibre based communications method that can run at up to 17 MB/s nominal
speed, and can support up to 1024 devices per channel. ESCON will only support one IO per channel.
Native ESCON distance is limited to 3km, but it can be extended to 60km using repeaters.

Copper Parallel
Called Bus and Tag, or parallel channels, these were massive blue sheathed copper cables as thick as
your arm. They were limited to 400 feet long. There are still a few of them out there. Their speed is a
maximum of 4.5 MB/s
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