Difference between Spooling and Buffering

In this article, you will learn the difference between spooling and buffering in the operating system. But before discussing the differences, you must know about the spooling and buffering in the operating system.

What is Spooling?

Spooling refers to Simultaneous Peripheral Operation Online. A spooling is a buffer that holds the jobs or tasks for a system until the system is ready to accept or execute another job. In spooling, the input/output of a job is overlapped with the computation of another job. For instance, a spooler may read the input of a job and simultaneously print the output of another job.

It may also process the data at remote locations. It only needs to be notified of the completion of a remote-side process to spool another process to the remote-side device. System performance is improved through spooling, which increases the device working rate. It usually leads to multiprogramming.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Spooling

Various advantages and disadvantages of spooling are as follows:

Advantages

1. Idle CPUs are not considered to be very efficient. Most protocols are created to make the best use of the CPU in the shortest period of time. Spooling is similar a process. During spooling, the CPU is kept busy for most of the season, and it only becomes idle when the queue is exhausted. As a result, any tasks that need to be completed can be put in the queue, and the CPU will complete all of them before entering the idle state.
2. It makes no difference how many I/O devices or actions there are. Many I/O devices can operate concurrently without interfering with or disrupting one another.
3. It enables applications to function at the CPU's speed while I/O devices operate at their maximum speed.
4. During spooling, there is no connection between the input/output devices and the CPU. It means the CPU won't have to wait for I/O tasks to finish.
5. Multiple I/O devices can work simultaneously.

Disadvantages

1. It's a technique for copying and running data from a slower to a faster device. The slower device makes a SPOOL to hold the data in a queue processed by the CPU. The technique alone makes Spooling useless in real-time environments where we require real-time results from the CPU. It's due to the slower input device, which provides data at a slower rate, whereas the CPU can function quicker, allowing it to move on to the next process in the queue. As a result, the final result or output is created later rather than in real-time.
2. It requires a huge quantity of storage, which is determined by the number of input requests and the input devices connected.

What is Buffering?

Buffering is the act of temporarily storing data in a buffer. The buffer is a part of the main memory used to temporarily store or hold data sent between two devices. In simple terms, a buffer is a temporary holding place for data that is being sent from one location to another.

Buffering data has three main objectives. The first is that it helps in matching the pace of two devices between which data is transferred.

Second, it helps in the adaption of devices with different data transfer sizes to one another. It assists devices in manipulating data prior to sending or receiving it. The large message is divided into little parts and sent over the network in computer networking. The pieces are gathered in a buffer and reassembled to make a complete large message at the receiving end.

The final use of buffering is that it allows for copy semantics. It also supports the copy semantic, which means that the buffer data version and the data version at the time of the system call should be the same. It contributes to improving the device's performance.

Features of Buffering

Various features of Buffering are as follows:

1. It is a technique for overlapping I/O and single-job processing. When the data is read, and the CPU is about to start processing it, the input devices are directed to start the next input immediately.
2. The CPU can continue processing the newly read data while the input device begins reading the data that follows. In this situation, the CPU generates data that is stored in a buffer until an output device can read it.
3. It also supports the copy semantic, which means that the buffer data version and the data version at the time of the system call should be the same.
4. It fixes the problem of the speed difference between the two devices through which the data is transferred.

Main Differences between the Spooling and buffering

Here, you will learn the main differences between spooling and buffering.

1. Spooling is a type of multi-programming that allows users to copy data between several devices. On the other hand, buffering stores data in a memory area temporarily while processing other data.
2. The basic operation of spooling is the overlap of one task's input and output with the calculation of another task. In contrast, the general process of buffering is the overlapping of input and output from one function with the task count.
3. A large area on the hard disk is available for the spooling operation to execute and then complete. In contrast, a small area with limited scope may be used for buffering.
4. The buffering process takes less time to finish in comparison to spooling.
5. Simultaneous peripheral operation online becomes another name for spooling, although buffering has no other name.
6. The spooling is more efficient than the buffering.
7. Furthermore, spooling helps in the exchange of data between devices with various data access rates. In contrast, the buffering assists in the adaptation to speed differences between data stream producers and consumers.
8. Spooling needs less resource management than buffering because various resources control the process for different jobs. On the other hand, Buffering needs higher resource management than spooling because the same resource handles the process of the same divided job.

Head-to-head differences between the spooling and buffering

Various head-to-head differences between spooling and buffering are as follows:

Conclusion

Both are spooling and buffering help to improve the system performance. Spooling is better than buffering because it handles the processing of multiple jobs at a time.