Synchronous Versus Asynchronous I/O

Data transfers can be synchronous or asynchronous depending on whether the entry point scheduling the transfer returns immediately or waits until the I/O has been completed.

The read(9E) and write(9E) entry points are synchronous entry points; they must not return until the I/O is complete. Upon return from the routines, the process knows whether the transfer has succeeded.

The aread(9E) and awrite(9E) entry points are asynchronous entry points. They schedule the I/O and return immediately. Upon return, the process issuing the request knows that the I/O has been scheduled and that the status of the I/O must be determined later. In the meantime, the process can perform other operations.

When an asynchronous I/O request is made to the kernel by a user process, the process is not required to wait while the I/O is in process. A process can perform multiple I/O requests and let the kernel handle the data transfer details. This is useful in applications such as transaction processing where concurrent programming methods can take advantage of asynchronous kernel I/O operations to increase performance or response time. Any performance boost for applications using asynchronous I/O, however, comes at the expense of greater programming complexity.