Microsoft tells disk makers to redesign products
InfoWorld | at | by Mike
Not content with telling hardware manufacturers what they must do, now Microsoft is informing disk makers that they have to make read and write speeds faster. It even tells them how to do it -- add flash memory cache.
The problem is processors wait for disk data reading/writing to end before embarking on their next task. The main delay is waiting for the disk head to be moved to the right part of the disk. By trying to anticipate which data is going to be needed next and pre-fetching that into cache memory in the drive unit the disk wait can be radically reduced.
Microprocessors use the same technique to pre-fetch instructions likely to be needed next; it makes them run applications faster.