Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know

latency.txt

Latency Comparison Numbers
--------------------------
L1 cache reference                           0.5 ns
Branch mispredict                            5   ns
L2 cache reference                           7   ns                      14x L1 cache
Mutex lock/unlock                           25   ns
Main memory reference                      100   ns                      20x L2 cache, 200x L1 cache
Compress 1K bytes with Zippy             3,000   ns        3 us
Send 1K bytes over 1 Gbps network       10,000   ns       10 us
Read 4K randomly from SSD*             150,000   ns      150 us          ~1GB/sec SSD
Read 1 MB sequentially from memory     250,000   ns      250 us
Round trip within same datacenter      500,000   ns      500 us
Read 1 MB sequentially from SSD*     1,000,000   ns    1,000 us    1 ms  ~1GB/sec SSD, 4X memory
Disk seek                           10,000,000   ns   10,000 us   10 ms  20x datacenter roundtrip
Read 1 MB sequentially from disk    20,000,000   ns   20,000 us   20 ms  80x memory, 20X SSD
Send packet CA->Netherlands->CA    150,000,000   ns  150,000 us  150 ms
------

Analogies to help you relate:
------------------------------

L1 Cache - There is a sandwich in front of you.
L2 Cache - Walk to the kitchen and make a sandwich
RAM - Drive to the store, purchase sandwich fixings, drive home and make sandwich
Hard Drive - Drive to the store. purchase seeds. grow seeds, harvest lettuce, wheat, etc. Make sandwich.
------

By Jeff Dean:               http://research.google.com/people/jeff/
Originally by Peter Norvig: http://norvig.com/21-days.html#answers

Contributions
-------------
Some updates from:       https://gist.github.com/2843375
'Humanized' comparison:  https://gist.github.com/2843375
Visual comparison chart: http://i.imgur.com/k0t1e.png
Animated presentation:   http://prezi.com/pdkvgys-r0y6/latency-numbers-for-programmers-web-development/latency.txt