Systems and methods for optimizing hard drive throughput

A system comprising:

• at least one physical processor;
• and
• physical memory comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the physical processor, cause the physical processor to:
• access at least one hard drive to measure one or more operational characteristics of the hard drive;
• derive one or more hard drive health factors used to control the hard drive that are based on the measured operational characteristics, the one or more derived hard drive health factors including an average per-seek time indicating an average amount of time the hard drive spends seeking specified data that is to be read and an average read speed indicating an average amount of time the hard drive spends reading the specified data;
• determine, based on the derived hard drive health factors and the measured operational characteristics, an amount of load servicing capacity currently available at the hard drive including identifying:
• a service time limit comprising a maximum amount of time between receiving a read request and servicing the read request;
• and
• a number of read requests that can currently be reordered into a read order that is based on the specified data's location on disk;
• and
• regulate the amount of load servicing performed by the hard drive according to the determined amount of available load servicing capacity and according to the number of currently reorderable read requests, the regulating including dynamically adjusting the determined amount of load servicing capacity to uphold the identified service time limit.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing device, cause the computing device to:

• access at least one hard drive to measure one or more operational characteristics of the hard drive;
• derive one or more hard drive health factors used to control the hard drive that are based on the measured operational characteristics, the one or more derived hard drive health factors including an average per-seek time indicating an average amount of time the hard drive spends seeking specified data that is to be read and an average read speed indicating an average amount of time the hard drive spends reading the specified data;
• determine, based on the derived hard drive health factors and the measured operational characteristics, an amount of load servicing capacity currently available at the hard drive including identifying:
• a service time limit comprising a maximum amount of time between receiving a read request and servicing the read request;
• and
• a number of read requests that can currently be reordered into a read order that is based on the specified data's location on disk;
• and
• regulate the amount of load servicing performed by the hard drive according to the determined amount of available load servicing capacity and according to the number of currently reorderable read requests, the regulating including dynamically adjusting the determined amount of load servicing capacity to uphold the identified service time limit.