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4.5    Performance characteristics 
Drive performance is characterized by the following parameters: 
  Command overhead 
  Mechanical positioning 
  -  Seek time 
  -  Latency 
  Data transfer speed 
  Buffering operation (Look ahead/Write cache) 
All the above parameters contribute to drive performance. There are other parameters that contribute to the 
performance of the actual system. This specification defines the characteristics of the drive, not the characteristics 
of the system throughput which depends on the system and the application. 
4.5.1  Command overhead 
Command overhead is defined as the time required 
  from the time H->D Reg FIS w/ command bit is sent by host 
  to the time 
  PIO Set Up FIS is sent by device(PIO Read/Write) 
  DATA FIS is sent by device(DMA Read) 
  DMA Activate FIS is sent by device(DMA Write) 
  DMA Set Up FIS is sent by device(NCQ Read/Write) 
  Seek Start (Read cache not hit or Seek) 
The table below gives average command overhead. 
 
Command type    (Drive is in quiescent state) 
Typical time for NCQ 
command (ms) 
 
Table 5    Command overhead