Editing Access time (section)

{{short description|Latency between a request to an electronic system and the access being completed}}
{{About||access time in hard disk drives|Disk access time|access time in Unix file statistics|stat (system call)|access time in telecommunications networks|Access network#Access process}}'''Access time''' is the time delay or [[Latency (engineering)|latency]] between a request to an electronic system, and the access being initiated or the requested data returned.

In [[computer]] and [[software system]]s, it is the time interval between the point where an [[instruction (computer science)|instruction]] control unit initiates a call to retrieve [[data]] or a request to store data, and the point at which delivery of the data is completed or the storage is started. Note that in [[Distributed computing|distributed software systems]], access time or latency should be measured through '99th percentile''.''{{Needs clarification|date=November 2024}}''<ref>{{Cite book |title=Understanding Distributed Systems: What every developer should know about large distributed applications |year=2021 |isbn=978-1838430207 |last1=Vitillo |first1=Roberto |publisher=Roberto Vitillo }}</ref>''