A standard set of computer tasks, designed to allow measurements to be made of computer performance. These tasks can be used to compare the performance of different software or hardware, e.g. how long it takes to copy a 1Mb file across a network, how many pages can be printed in one minute, how long it takes to save 1000 database records to disk. Benchmarks may also be used in acceptance testing of a computer system, by specifying performance that must be achieved before the system is considered finished.