Latency, Bandwidth and Throughput

Definition of terms

Definition from the article Understanding Latency versus Throughput:

Latency

Latency is the time required to perform some action or to produce some result.

Latency is measured in units of time -- hours, minutes, seconds, nanoseconds or clock periods.

Throughput

Throughput is the number of such actions executed or results produced per unit of time.

This is measured in units of whatever is being produced (cars, motorcycles, I/O samples, memory words, iterations) per unit of time. The term "memory bandwidth" is sometimes used to specify the throughput of memory systems.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can travel through a 'channel'.

Throughput is how much data actually does travel through the 'channel' successfully.

Analogy

What is the difference between latency, bandwidth and throughput?

• Latency is the amount of time it takes to travel through the tube.

• Bandwidth is how wide the tube is.

• The amount of water flow will be your throughput

Reference

Understanding Latency versus Throughput

Throughput and bandwidth difference?

What is the difference between latency, bandwidth and throughput?