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Disks: Why size=performance - Interesting article on speeding up your computer

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patteo:
I'm wondering if disk defragmentation programs like PerfectDisk, Diskkeeper etc takes the thoughts expressed in the articles below into consideration when defragging and deciding where to place files.

"Big=fast
Most people keep less than 80 GB of data, including the operating system and their applications, on their hard drive. So why should they buy a 500 MB, 1 or even 2 TB hard drive?

One simple reason: speed. That big hard drive will give you this snappiest performance this side of a solid-state disk.

For many applications, even faster than a costly SSD. For a lot less money.

Why?"
http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=686&tag=nl.e550

A related article here :

Hard disks *do* get slower with use

Posted by Robin Harris @ 12:33 pm

a_lunatic:
Here's a interesting article Modifying the Seagate 1.5TB Hard Drive: Unleash the Hidden Performance Within

mouser:
That's really quite interesting and something that never occurred to me.

f0dder:
Yes, harddrives are faster on the outer tracks, but comparing harddrives to SSDs in terms of sequential read/write speed is where the blog falls flat. Entirely flat. You obviously don't get a SSD for working with "large files".

When doing small random I/O, even a velociraptor drive drops down to something like less than 1MB/s speed, whereas an Intel X25-E still provides ~20MB/s... you do the math :)

Stoic Joker:
I'm still not convinced there is an advantage that is effected by this tweak. Drives fill from the faster outside tracks in (or at least that's my understanding...) so what advantage is there to artificially shrinking the drive if you only have 200-300GB of stuff ... it going to be on the faster outer edge anyway (regardless of how much extra free space there is to rattle around in).

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