For platter-style hard drives, latency is an issue. “Latency” is the term used to denote the lag in time between a request for information from the disk drive and the disk drive’s readiness to return that information. Because disk platters have to spin to a certain location, or “sector,” before the disk can retrieve the information on that platter, there is a possible down time of a few milliseconds during data requests. Using a simple formula, the programmer can determine an average latency for a hard drive. (1 / (SpindleSpeed / 60)) * 0.5 * 1000 = (60/6000) * 500 = 500/100 = 5 milliseconds Writer Bio
