Which one of the following facilitates transfer of bulk data from hard disk to main memory with the highest throughput?
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GATE CSE 2022 · Q17
MCQ1 markEasy
Time
Which one of the following facilitates transfer of bulk data from hard disk to main memory with the highest throughput?
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Solution
Step-by-step verified solution
Official answer: A) DMA based I/O transfer
I/O Interface, Interrupts and DMADirect Memory Access (DMA) allows high-speed peripheral devices, such as hard disk controllers, to transfer large blocks of data directly to and from main memory without continuous CPU intervention.
DMA based I/O transfer (Option A): Once initialized by the CPU, the DMA controller transfers entire blocks of data directly into memory at memory bus speed, yielding the highest throughput.
Interrupt-driven I/O (Option B): The CPU is interrupted for each word/byte transferred, which incurs context switching overhead and severely limits throughput for bulk data.
Polling based I/O (Option C) & Programmed I/O (Option D): The CPU remains busy checking device status in a loop and transferring data word-by-word, wasting processor cycles and providing low throughput.
Therefore, (A) is the correct option.
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Examiner trap
The misconception this question tests
Consider which mechanism transfers large blocks of data directly between secondary storage and main memory without requiring CPU intervention for each byte or word.
This I/O Interface, Interrupts and DMA previous year question is Q17 of the GATE CSE 2022 paper. Find more GATE CSE PYQs on I/O Interface, Interrupts and DMA in Computer Organization and Architecture, or browse all GATE CSE PYQs.
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I/O Interface, Interrupts and DMA in GATE CSE
I/O Interface, Interrupts and DMA has 13 GATE CSE PYQs across 12 papers from 2011 to 2026. 8 of them are 1-mark MCQs like this one, and it is the only one in GATE CSE 2022.
How GATE tests I/O Interface, Interrupts and DMAMore from GATE CSE 2022
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Independent practice explanation verified by the GateAI team. GATE is conducted by the IITs; question text follows the official paper.