average seek time

storage The mean time it takes to move the head of a diskdrive from one track to another, averaged over the source

and destination cylinders.

The average seek time gives a good measure of the speed of the

drive in a multi-user environment where successive read/write

request are largely uncorrelated.

Ten ms is common for a hard disk and 200 ms for an

eight-speed CD-ROM.

(1997-07-22)