Access time
Seek time
With rotating drives, the ''seek time'' measures the time it takes the head assembly on the actuator arm to travel to the track of the disk where the data will be read or written. The data on the media is stored in sectors which are arranged in parallel circular tracks (Seek times & characteristics
The first HDD had an average seek time of about 600 ms. and by the middle 1970s, HDDs were available with seek times of about 25 ms. Some early PC drives used a stepper motor to move the heads, and as a result had seek times as slow as 80–120 ms, but this was quickly improved by voice coil type actuation in the 1980s, reducing seek times to around 20 ms. Seek time has continued to improve slowly over time. The fastest high-end server drives today have a seek time around 4 ms. Some mobile devices have 15 ms drives, with the most common mobile drives at about 12 ms and the most common desktop drives typically being around 9 ms. Two other less commonly referenced seek measurements are ''track-to-track'' and ''full stroke''. The track-to-track measurement is the time required to move from one track to an adjacent track. This is the shortest (fastest) possible seek time. In HDDs this is typically between 0.2 and 0.8 ms. The full stroke measurement is the time required to move from the outermost track to the innermost track. This is the longest (slowest) possible seek time.Short stroking
''Short stroking'' is a term used in enterprise storage environments to describe an HDD that is purposely restricted in total capacity so that the actuator only has to move the heads across a smaller number of total tracks. This limits the maximum distance the heads can be from any point on the drive thereby reducing its average seek time, but also restricts the total capacity of the drive. This reduced seek time enables the HDD to increase the number of IOPS available from the drive. The cost and power per usable byte of storage rises as the maximum track range is reduced.Effect of audible noise and vibration control
Measured in dBA, audible noise is significant for certain applications, such as DVRs, digital audio recording and quiet computers. Low noise disks typically use fluid bearings, lower rotational speeds (usually 5,400 rpm) and reduce the seek speed under load (Rotational latency
''Rotational latency'' (sometimes called ''rotational delay'' or just ''latency'') is the delay waiting for the rotation of the disk to bring the required disk sector under the read-write head. It depends on the rotational speed of a disk (or spindle motor), measured in revolutions per minute (RPM). For most magnetic media-based drives, the ''average rotational latency'' is typically based on the empirical relation that the average latency in milliseconds for such a drive is one-half the rotational period. ''Maximum rotational latency'' is the time it takes to do a full rotation excluding anyEffect of reduced power consumption
Power consumption has become increasingly important, not only in mobile devices such as laptops but also in server and desktop markets. Increasing data center machine density has led to problems delivering sufficient power to devices (especially forOther
The ' or ''command overhead'' is the time it takes for the drive electronics to set up the necessary communication between the various components in the device so it can read or write the data. This is of the order of 3Data transfer rate
Effect of file system
Transfer rate can be influenced by file system fragmentation and the layout of the files. Defragmentation is a procedure used to minimize delay in retrieving data by moving related items to physically proximate areas on the disk. Some computer operating systems perform defragmentation automatically. Although automatic defragmentation is intended to reduce access delays, the procedure can slow response when performed while the computer is in use.Effect of areal density
HDD data transfer rate depends upon the rotational speed of the disks and the data recording density. Because heat and vibration limit rotational speed, increasing density has become the main method to improve sequential transfer rates. '' Areal density'' (the number of bits that can be stored in a certain area of the disk) has been increased over time by increasing both the number of tracks across the disk, and the number of sectors per track. The latter will increase the data transfer rate for a given RPM speed. Improvement of data transfer rate performance is correlated to the areal density only by increasing a track's linear surface bit density (sectors per track). Simply increasing the number of tracks on a disk can affect seek times but not gross transfer rates. According to industry observers and analysts for 2011 to 2016, “The current roadmap predicts no more than a 20%/yr improvement in bit density”. Seek times have not kept up with throughput increases, which themselves have not kept up with growth in bit density and storage capacity.Interleave
Sector interleave is a mostly obsolete device characteristic related to data rate, dating back to when computers were too slow to be able to read large continuous streams of data. Interleaving introduced gaps between data sectors to allow time for slow equipment to get ready to read the next block of data. Without interleaving, the next logical sector would arrive at the read/write head before the equipment was ready, requiring the system to wait for another complete disk revolution before reading could be performed. However, because interleaving introduces intentional physical delays between blocks of data thereby lowering the data rate, setting the interleave to a ratio higher than required causes unnecessary delays for equipment that has the performance needed to read sectors more quickly. The interleaving ratio was therefore usually chosen by the end-user to suit their particular computer system's performance capabilities when the drive was first installed in their system. Modern technology is capable of reading data as fast as it can be obtained from the spinning platters, so hard drives usually have a fixed sector interleave ratio of 1:1, which is effectively no interleaving being used.Power consumption
Power consumption has become increasingly important, not only in mobile devices such as laptops but also in server and desktop markets. Increasing data center machine density has led to problems delivering sufficient power to devices (especially for spin up), and getting rid of the waste heat subsequently produced, as well as environmental and electrical cost concerns (see green computing). Heat dissipation is tied directly to power consumption, and as drives age, disk failure rates increase at higher drive temperatures. Similar issues exist for large companies with thousands of desktop PCs. Smaller form factor drives often use less power than larger drives. One interesting development in this area is actively controlling the seek speed so that the head arrives at its destination only just in time to read the sector, rather than arriving as quickly as possible and then having to wait for the sector to come around (i.e. the rotational latency). Many of the hard drive companies are now producing Green Drives that require much less power and cooling. Many of these Green Drives spin slower (<5,400 rpm compared to 7,200, 10,000 or 15,000 rpm) thereby generating less heat. Power consumption can also be reduced by parking the drive heads when the disk is not in use reducing friction, adjusting spin speeds, and disabling internal components when not in use. Drives use more power, briefly, when starting up (spin-up). Although this has little direct effect on total energy consumption, the maximum power demanded from the power supply, and hence its required rating, can be reduced in systems with several drives by controlling when they spin up. * On SCSI hard disk drives, the SCSI controller can directly control spin up and spin down of the drives. * Some Parallel ATA (PATA) andShock resistance
Shock resistance is especially important for mobile devices. Some laptops now includeSMR drives
Hard drives that use shingled magnetic recording (SMR) differ significantly in write performance characteristics from conventional (CMR) drives. In particular, sustained random writes are significantly slower on SMR drives. As SMR technology causes a degradation on write performance, some new HDD with Hybrid SMR technology (making it possible to adjust the ratio of SMR part and CMR part dynamically) may have various characteristics under different SMR/CMR ratios.Comparison to solid-state drives
Solid-state devices (SSDs) do not have moving parts. Most attributes related to the movement of mechanical components are not applicable in measuring their performance, but they are affected by some electrically based elements that causes a measurable access delay. Measurement of seek time is only testing electronic circuits preparing a particular location on the memory in the storage device. Typical SSDs will have a seek time between 0.08 and 0.16 ms. Flash memory-based SSDs do not need defragmentation. However, because file systems write pages of data that are smaller (2K, 4K, 8K, or 16K) than the blocks of data managed by the SSD (from 256KB to 4MB, hence 128 to 256 pages per block), over time, an SSD's write performance can degrade as the drive becomes full of pages which are partial or no longer needed by the file system. This can be ameliorated by a TRIM command from the system or internal garbage collection. Flash memory wears out over time as it is repeatedly written to; the writes required by defragmentation wear the drive for no speed advantage.See also
*References
{{Reflist, 30em, refs= {{cite web , url=http://www.pctechguide.com/hard-disk-hard-drive-performance-transfer-rates-latency-and-seek-times , title=Hard Disk (Hard Drive) Performance – transfer rates, latency and seek times , publisher=pctechguide.com , access-date=2011-07-01 {{cite web , url=http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/4/html/Introduction_To_System_Administration/s1-storage-perf.html , title=Red Hat Documentation: Hard Drive Performance Characteristics , publisher=redhat.com , access-date=2011-07-01 {{cite web , url=http://pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/perf/spec/posAccess-c.html , title=Access Time , publisher=pcguide.com , last=Kozierok , first=Charles , date=2001-04-17 , access-date=2012-04-04 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319101435/http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/perf/spec/posAccess-c.html , archive-date=2012-03-19 , url-status=dead {{cite web , url=http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/getting-hang-iops , title=Getting the hang of IOPS , date=2011-04-25 , access-date=2011-07-03 {{cite web , url=http://www.newyorkdatarecovery.com/hard-drive-glossary.html , title=Hard Drive Data Recovery Glossary , publisher=New York Data Recovery , access-date=2011-07-14 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110715222759/http://www.newyorkdatarecovery.com/hard-drive-glossary.html , archive-date=2011-07-15 , url-status=dead {{cite web , url=http://pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/perf/spec/posSeek-c.html , title=Seek Time , publisher=pcguide.com , last=Kozierok , first=Charles , date=2001-04-17 , access-date=2012-04-04 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419052217/http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/perf/spec/posSeek-c.html , archive-date=2012-04-19 , url-status=dead {{Cite web , url=http://www.cs.uh.edu/~paris/7360/PAPERS03/IEEEComputer.DiskModel.pdf , title=An introduction to disk drive modeling , author1=Chris Ruemmler , author2=John Wilkes, publisher=Hewlett-Packard Laboratories , date=March 1994 , access-date=2011-08-02 {{cite web , url=http://www.lintech.org/comp-per/10HDDISK.pdf , title=Definition of Average Seek time , access-date=2011-07-06 , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101217143655/http://lintech.org/comp-per/10HDDISK.pdf , archive-date=2010-12-17 {{cite web, date=June 2010, url=http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=140, title=WD Scorpio Blue Mobile: Drive Specifications, publisher= Western Digital, access-date=2011-01-15, url-status=dead, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110105162632/http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=140, archive-date=2011-01-05 {{cite web , url=http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_350.html , title=IBM Archives – IBM 350 disk storage unit , date=23 January 2003 , publisher=IBM, access-date=2011-07-04 {{Cite web , url=http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3350.html , title=IBM Archives – IBM 3350 direct access storage , date=23 January 2003 , publisher=IBM, access-date=2011-07-04 {{cite web , url=http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/short-stroking-hdd,2157.html , title=Accelerate Your Hard Drive By Short Stroking , last1=Schmid , first1=Patrick , last2=Roos , first2=Achim , publisher=tomshardware.com , date=2009-03-05, access-date=2011-07-05 {{cite web , url=http://pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/qual/issuesNoise-c.html , title=Noise and Vibration , publisher=pcguide.com , last=Kozierok , first=Charles , date=2001-04-17 , access-date=2012-04-04 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120101162803/http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/qual/issuesNoise-c.html , archive-date=2012-01-01 , url-status=dead {{cite web , url=http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/sound_barrier.pdf , title=Seagate's Sound Barrier Technology , date=November 2000 , access-date=2011-07-06 , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324185420/http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/sound_barrier.pdf , archive-date=2012-03-24 In the 1950s and 1960s magnetic data storage devices used a drum instead of flat discs. 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