Definitions for "Asynchronous I/O"
Asynchronous I/O allows a process to submit an I/O and not have to wait for the response. Later, when the I/O is completed, an interrupt occurs or the process can check to see whether the I/O has completed. By using asynchronous I/Os, the DBWR can manage multiple writes at once so that it is not starved waiting for I/Os to complete.
Input/output operations in which an application issues an I/O request to a device, and then continues operation while the device transfers data. Asynchronous I/O greatly speeds fixed-disk file operations.
A method many of the processes in Windows NT use to optimize their performance. When an application initiates an I/O operation, the I/O Manager accepts the request but does not block the application?s execution while the I/O operation is being performed. Instead, the application is allowed to continue doing work. Most I/O devices are very slow in comparison to a computer?s processor, so an application can do a lot of work while waiting for an I/O operation to complete. See also synchronous I/O.
A nonblocking I/O scheme where data is written to the cache and might return control before the data is written to the disk.
Keywords:  raw, interface, blocking, non, access
Provides non-blocking I/O access through a raw device interface.