Throughput

In general terms, throughput is the rate of production or the rate at which something can be processed.

When used in the context of communication networks, such as Ethernet or packet radio, throughput or network throughput is the rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel. The data these messages belong to may be delivered over a physical or logical link, or it can pass through a certain network node. Throughput is usually measured in bits per second (bit/s or bps), and sometimes in data packets per second (p/s or pps) or data packets per time slot.

The system throughput or aggregate throughput is the sum of the data rates that are delivered to all terminals in a network. Throughput is essentially synonymous to digital bandwidth consumption; it can be analyzed mathematically by applying the queueing theory, where the load in packets per time unit is denoted as the arrival rate (λ), and the throughput, in packets per time unit, is denoted as the departure rate (μ).

Throughput (business)

Throughput is the movement of inputs and outputs through a production process. Without access to and assurance of a supply of inputs, a successful business enterprise would not be possible.

Overview

In the business management theory of constraints, throughput is the rate at which a system achieves its goal. Oftentimes, this is monetary revenue and is in contrast to output, which is inventory that may be sold or stored in a warehouse. In this case, throughput is measured by revenue received (or not) at the point of sale—exactly the right time. Output that becomes part of the inventory in a warehouse may mislead investors or others about the organizations condition by inflating the apparent value of its assets. The theory of constraints and throughput accounting explicitly avoid that trap.

Throughput can be best described as the rate at which a system generates its products or services per unit of time. Businesses often measure their throughput using a mathematical equation known as Little's law, which is related to inventories and process time: time to fully process a single product.

Hard disk drive performance characteristics

Higher performance in hard disk drives comes from devices which have better performance characteristics. These devices include those with rotating media, hereby called rotating drives, i.e., hard disk drives (HDD), floppy disk drives (FDD), optical discs (DVD-RW / CD-RW), and it also covers devices without moving parts like solid-state drives (SSD). For SSDs, most of the attributes related to the movement of mechanical components are not applicable, but the device is actually affected by some other electrically based element that still causes a measurable delay when isolating and measuring that attribute. These performance characteristics can be grouped into two categories: access time and data transfer time (or rate).

Access time

The access time or response time of a rotating drive is a measure of the time it takes before the drive can actually transfer data. The factors that control this time on a rotating drive are mostly related to the mechanical nature of the rotating disks and moving heads. It is composed of a few independently measurable elements that are added together to get a single value when evaluating the performance of a storage device. The access time can vary significantly, so it is typically provided by manufacturers or measured in benchmarks as an average. For SSDs this time is not dependent on moving parts, but rather electrical connections to solid state memory, so the access time is very quick and consistent. Most testing and benchmark applications do not draw a distinction between rotating drives and SSDs so they both go through the same measurement process.