Computer Science for IGCSE & O level - Hardware (Section 10 - No. 12)
What determines the speed of a hard disk drive?
The rotational speed of the platters.
The time it takes for the read/write head to move to a track.
The capacity of the drive.
The presence of a solid-state cache.
Explication
The speed is determined by how quickly the platters spin and how fast the head can access the data.