3 ms·

Linux. It doesn't queue individual files,but it does schedule disk blocks to minimize seeks and maximize throughput. Look up "elevator algorithm " and "Linux IO

• sciurus 15y ago
  Windows does this too, of course. Any modern OS does. http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/f/7/af7777e5-7dcd-4800-8a0a-b18336565f5b/Priorityio.doc http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/f/7/af7777e5-7dcd-4...
  • ori_b 15y ago
    I'd be surprised if it didn't. Then again, I was rather surprised that Windows XP's throughput dropped massively when I started copying more than one file at once, so it seems that it didn't do a good job of it.
    • sjs 15y ago
      sciurus did say modern which XP is most definitely not.
      • rbanffy 15y ago
        XP is pretty modern in relation to elevator seek. It's been used since the 70's, at least.
• ak217 15y ago
  This is on such a different level as to be irrelevant. The I/O scheduler will still try to accommodate requests within timeframes of seconds, at most. When copying large files to/from two different areas on a spinning disk simultaneously, this means significant time will be spent flying the heads back and forth between them, regardless of the elevator. So queueing two 8GB movie files to go one after another will be significantly faster than copying them simultaneously.