Magnetic Disk Drive Access Times

Depending on whether a disk has fixed or movable heads, are three factors that contribute to the time required to access a file: seek time, search time, and transfer time.

Seek Time has been the slowest of the three factors. This is the time required to position the read/write head on the proper track. This does not apply to devices with fixed read/write heads because each track has its own read/write head.

Search Time, also known as rotational delay, is the time it takes to rotate the disk until the requested record is moved under the read/write head.

Transfer time is the fastest of the three; thats when the data is actually transferred from secondary storage to main memory.

Fixed-Head Drives
Fixed-head disk drives are fast. The total amount of time required to access data depends on the rotational speed, which varies from device to device but is constant within each device, and the position of the record relative to the position of the read/write head. Therefore, total access time is the sum of search time plus transfer time. search time (rotational delay) + transfer time (data transfer) =access time

Because of continuous rotation of the disk, three basic positions are for the requested record in relation to the position of the read/write head .

Fixed-head drive disks access times

Benchmarks
Maximum access

Access Time
16.8 ms + 0.00094 ms/byte

Average access

8.4 ms + 0.00094 ms/byte

Sequential access

Depends on the length of the record; generally less than 1 ms (known as the transfer rate)

Data recorded on fixed head drives may or may not be blocked at the discretion of the application programmer. Blocking isnt used to save space because there are no IRGs between records. Instead, blocking is used to save time.

Advantages of Blocking the Records

For example, a record containing 100 bytes and blocks containing 10 records. If we were to read 10 records individually, we would multiply the access time for a single record by 10: access time = 8.4 + 0.094 = 8.494 ms for one record total access time = 10(8.4 + 0.094) = 84.940 ms for 10 records

Or we can read one block of 10 records we would make a single access, so wed compute the access time only once, multiplying the transfer rate by 10: access time = 8.4 + (0.094 * 10) = 8.4 + 0.94 = 9.34 ms for 10 records in one block

Once the block is in memory, the software that handles blocking and deblocking takes over. But, the amount of time used in deblocking must be less than what you saved in access time (75.6 ms) for this to be a productive move.

Movable-Head Devices
Movable-head disk drives add a third time element to the computation of access time. Seek time is the time required to move the arm into position over the proper track. So now the formula for access time is: seek time (arm movement) search time (rotational delay) + transfer time (data transfer) =access time

The calculations to figure search time (rotational delay) and transfer time are the same as those presented for fixed-head drives. The maximum seek time, which is the maximum time required to move the arm, is typically 50 ms.

Typical access times for a movable-head drive

Benchmarks
Maximum access

Access Time
50 ms + 16.8 ms + 0.00094 ms/byte

Average access

25 ms + 8.4 ms + 0.00094 ms/byte

Sequential access

depends on the length of the record, generally less than 1 ms.

The variance in access time has increased in comparison to that of the fixed-head drive but its relatively smallespecially when compared to tape access, which varies from milliseconds to minutes.

In this case, blocking is a good way to minimize access time. using the same example as for fixed-head disks and considering the average case with 10 seeks followed by 10 searches, we would get: Access time =25 + 8.4 + 0.094 = 33.494 ms for one record Total access time = 10* 33.494 =334.94 ms for 10 seconds ( about 1/3 of a second)

But when we put ten records into one block, the access time s signifigantly decreased. Total access time = 25+ 8.4+ (0.094 * 10) =33.4 + 0.94 =34.34 ms for ten records