Why is "Multiplexed, non-blocking I/O, [..] much more scalable than thread-oriented, blocking I/O"?

I'm reading about Channels in the JDK 7 docs (here), and stumbled upon this:

Multiplexed, non-blocking I/O, which is much more scalable than thread-oriented, blocking I/O, [...]

Is there a simple explanation as to why this is so?

java io blocking nonblocking

Edit Report

0 Answers