Q. How to Access the Disk Data?

Disks operate is semi-random mode of operation and generally referenced block wise. The data access time on a disk comprises two major components:

• Seek time: Time to position head on a particular track. On a fixed head disks it's time taken by electronic circuit to select needed head whereas in movable head disks it's time needed to move head to a specific track.
• Latency time: This is time needed by a sector to reach below read/write head. On an average it's half of time taken for a rotation by disk.

In addition to seek and latency time the time taken to transfer a (read/write) block of words can be considered however normally it is too small in comparison to seek time and latency and in general disk access time is concerned to be sum of seek time and latency time. Because access time of disks is large so it is advisable to read a sizeable part of data in a single go and so disks are referenced block wise. As a matter of fact you will find that in most of computer system input/output involving disk is given a very high priority. Fundamental reason for such priority is latency time which is needed once the block which is to be read passes below read-write head. It may take time of order of milliseconds to do it again, in turn delaying Input /Output and lowering performance of system.