Seek Time

What is Seek Time?

Seek time is the time it takes for a storage device to locate a specific piece of data on the drive.

In general, SSDs have much lower seek times than HDDs. This is because SSDs do not have any moving parts, and data can be accessed from any location on the drive with the same speed. In contrast, HDDs have mechanical components that need to physically move to access data, which can result in longer seek times. Seek times for HDDs can range from several milliseconds to tens of milliseconds, while SSDs typically have seek times of just a few microseconds. Low seek times are particularly important for applications that require fast access to small files or data scattered across different locations on the drive. This includes database applications, virtualization, and gaming. Overall, the lower seek times of SSDs make them a better choice for applications that require fast access to data. However, HDDs may still be a more cost-effective option for applications that do not require high performance.