Access Time

period of time it takes a computer to provide data that has been requested

Disk time is the time delay or latency between a request for clock to an electronic system, and the access being granted or the requested data returned.In a telecommunications system, access time is the delay between the start of an access attempt and successful access. Access time values are measured only on access attempts that result in successful access. In a computer, it is the time interval between the instant at which an instruction control unit initiates a call for data or a request to store data, and the instant at which delivery of the data is completed or the storage is started.In magnetic disk drives, it is the time for the access arm to reach the desired track and the delay for the rotation of the disk to bring the required sector under the read-write mechanism. Theoretical averages of the access time or latency are shown in the table below, based on the empirical relation that the average latency in milliseconds for such a drive is about 30000/RPM: Seek Time : It is the amount of time between when the CPU requests a file and when the first byte of the file is sent to CPU. Times between 10 to 20 milliseconds are common.
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Noun
1. (computer science) the interval between the time data is requested by the system and the time the data is provided by the drive; "access time is the sum of seek time and rotational latency and command processing overhead"
(hypernym) time interval, interval
(part-meronym) seek time
(classification) computer science, computing

1. In a telecommunication system, the elapsed time between the start of an access attempt and successful access. Note: Access time values are measured only on access attempts that result in successful access. 2. In a computer, the time interval between the instant at which an instruction control unit initiates a call for data and the instant at which delivery of the data is completed. (188 ) 3. The time interval between the instant at which storage of data is requested and the instant at which storage is started. (188 ) 4. In magnetic disk devices, the time for the access arm to reach the desired track and the delay for the rotation of the disk to bring the required sector under the read-write mechanism.

<hardware, storage> The average time interval between a storage peripheral (usually a disk drive or semiconductor memory) receiving a request to read or write a certain location and returning the value read or completing the write.
(1997-06-14)