What is Latency?

Latency, in general, is used to describe a delay between the cause and the effect of a physical change.

The following are the different types of latencies:

• Data latency is referred to the delay between a query being input and the results showing at the screen.
• Disk latency is the time taken by the selected sector to rotate and position under the read or write head of a HDD.

• Channel latency is the time it takes for a computer channel to free up so that data may be transferred.
• Network latency is defined as the delay when a packet of data is temporarily stored, analyzed and then sent forward to its destination.