Advances in disk technology: performance issues

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Abstract
The past few years have seen rapid advancements in magnetic recording technology, bringing cheaper, smaller, and more capacious disk drives. Some of the advances improve disk performance, but not all. Sometimes an advance may be beneficial or harmful to performance, depending on how or where it is applied. How, for example, does disk density affect data transfer rate? How do multiple platters affect head seek time? And how does partitioning large-capacity drives affect performance for each partition? The answer to these questionsýand others like themýlargely depends on particular configurations and user workload. It is important for both the user and the disk drive designer to be aware that while some advances may bring benefits in other areas, they don't necessarily improve performance. This fact should be considered when weighing technology options. This article explains how to evaluate disk drive technology on performance.

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