About how long does it take to read a record from a disc drive?

  • A: 10 microseconds (0.00001 second)
  • B: 100 microseconds (0.0001 second)
  • C: 1 millisecond (0.001 second)
  • D: 10 milliseconds (0.01 second)
  • E: 100 milliseconds (0.1 second)

    Answer: D

    Disk access takes around 10 milliseconds, 1/100 of a second. While this seems fast, a computer can execute millions of instructions in this amount of time. Thus, disk access can easily become a bottleneck, which is why it takes so long to boot up your computer.

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