title: Data structures and Algorithm analysis question
body: <p>I'm looking for an answer to this question that comes from a class on data structures and algorithms. I learned about the merge sort but don't remember clusters and buffers. I'm not quite sure I understand the question. Can someone help explain or answer it?</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>A file of size 1 Million clusters is
    to be sorted using 128 input buffers
    of one cluster size. There is an
    output buffer of one cluster size. How
    many Disk I/O's will be needed if the
    balanced k-way merge sort (a
    multi-step merge) algorithm is used?</p>
  </blockquote>