Western Digital VelociRaptor 600 GB Hard Disk Drive Review
Access Time
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Access time is another important measurement. It measures the time the storage unit delays to start delivering data after the computer has asked a given data. It is measured in the order of milliseconds (ms, which is equal to 0.001 s) and the lower this value, the better.
While hard disk drives have access times in the other of tens of milliseconds, solid state drives, being 100% electronic components, have an access time close to zero.
The new VelociRaptor has an access time similar to the “old” 300 GB VelociRaptor, on the 7 ms range, which is very low for a hard disk drive: a regular 1 TB drive has an access time around 12 ms (i.e., around 80% slower on this parameter).