Exactly, Mladen. And of course since form factor sizes are somewhat standardized, instead of using the higher density to make disks with smaller diameters and therefore with proportionally shorter average seek times, they keep the diameter constant and the size of the disk goes up but seek time only rises at high expense of tiny relative improvments in engineering the mechanics of head positioning. Sure, the lap time goes down as the RPMs go up, but you've still got to move in and out radially to get to the right cylinder. As the costs of SSD trend downward and writing to on board persistent memory in duplicate using on board power on system power failure becomes standard, we'll get to use more of the technology that overcomes the mechanical limits in a scalable way. mwf -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Gogala, Mladen Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 11:39 AM To: 'oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx' Subject: RE: BINARIES - San or Local Storage Let me guess: drives have cache, and controllers have cache as well?? Seek time is defined as an average time that heads need to move from one sector to another. Is a purely mechanical quantity, and I'm not aware of any significant technology advances in moving heads from one place to another. It's pure mechanics, which is essentially the same as it was 10 years ago. What you're measuring is impacted by cache. It's the same thing as bicycle: the look is much more modern, it contains carbon fibers, titanium and modern materials, but I still have to pedal it uphill. Lance Armstrong would probably beat me on a 20 years old bicycle without a problem. It's the same with disk drives: not much new technology there. Density is increased, disks are rotating faster, but the seek time is still the same. -- Mladen Gogala A & E TV Network Ext. 1216 > -----Original Message----- > From: Jesse, Rich [mailto:Rich.Jesse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 10:32 AM > To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: RE: BINARIES - San or Local Storage > > > That's a pretty sad state then. Even my old 7200RPM 4.3GB FW > SCSIs that = work threw out are 8.5ms. 15K spin SCSI > Ultra320s should have an = average seek of about 3.5-4.0 ms > Seagate Cheetahs are 3.6, for example. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------