Seek time measures the mechanical delay incurred while a hard disk drive actuator arm moves the head assembly to the physical cylinder containing the target data. It is usually measured in milliseconds. Lower seek times indicate a faster drive, which is critical for random access performance in databases and operating systems.
The new enterprise drives have a sub-three millisecond seek time, which should clear up the IO bottleneck on the database server.
Related terms
Average seek time
The typical time it takes a hard drive actuator arm to position the read and write head over a requested data track.
Maximum seek time
The longest possible delay for a disk drive head to move between the innermost and outermost tracks.
Hard drive
An electromechanical data storage device containing spinning magnetic platters.
Latency
The time it takes for a packet of data to travel from its source to its destination.