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From: kahn@xanth.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Floppy disk access speed
Message-ID: <3071@xanth.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 23:07:36 EST
Article-I.D.: xanth.3071
Posted: Thu Oct 29 23:07:36 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Oct-87 17:41:43 EST
Distribution: na
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 8
Keywords: why are floppy accesses slow?


Does anyone know why floppy drive accesses are so slow?  If the disk spins
at 300 rpms, and a track has 8 sectors, it should only take 0.0222 seconds
to read a sector.  This translates to a maximum access rate of as high as
something like 45K bytes/sec, plus any time required to switch tracks.
The data bus, at million(s) of bytes per second, shouldn't be the bottleneck.
Why is it necessary to go to a hard disk to get closer to the speeds which,
in theory, the floppy can reach?