Tertiary memory access and performance in the datacomputer
Donald E. Eastlake · Very Large Data Bases · 1977
The Datacomputer is a data base management system, developed by Computer Corporation of America, and designed for shared remote access to large on-line data sets. It makes use of tertiary memory which is large capacity slower access memory beyond primary core and secondary disk memory. The Datacomputer is the only operational general purpose system capable of efficiently handling data sets of over a trillion bits. A Datacomputer is currently operational on the Arpanet using the first public installation of the Ampex Tera Bit Memory as its tertiary mass storage sub-system. This paper is in the nature of a VLDB case study with particular attention to the mass storage device used, the tertiary memory access strategies used, and the features provided in the Datacomputer for handling very large data bases.