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

[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).

[f0dder]

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).

Thing is, you don't - necessarily - know how your OS/filesystem choice is going to distribute data, at least not if you make a single big partition. If you only make a 300gig partition on a 1TB drive, I dunno if the LBA-limit trick is going to have any advantage, though

[tomos]

If you only make a 300gig partition on a 1TB drive, I dunno if the LBA-limit trick is going to have any advantage, though smiley

I dont follow you there f0dder - are you saying making a 300gig partition wont be as good as the way they do it (or *will* be as good...)
[or neither maybe ? lol]

[4wd]

If you only make a 300gig partition on a 1TB drive, I dunno if the LBA-limit trick is going to have any advantage, though smiley

I dont follow you there f0dder.......

I believe he means that as you delete/move/copy files around on your system, newly written data will move progressively further into the inner areas of the drive platters, thus slowing down.  Recent filesystems have a habit of just marking things as deleted but not actually using the vacated blocks until available clean blocks are mostly used.  This is why data recovery programs work so good, (the good ones anyway, eg. GetDataBack).

EDIT: GAH!  I think I replied to the part you didn't quote....oh well....back under the rock  

...- are you saying making a 300gig partition wont be as good as the way they do it (or *will* be as good...) [or neither maybe ? lol]

To my thinking, it should be the same bearing in mind any access to any other possible partition on the same drive will immediately negate any advantage gained in transfer rate.
But having a single 300GB partition on a 1-2TB drive seems like an awful waste of resources to me.

[tomos]

To my thinking, it should be the same bearing in mind any access to any other possible partition on the same drive will immediately negate any advantage gained in transfer rate.
But having a single 300GB partition on a 1-2TB drive seems like an awful waste of resources to me.

you could use the rest as backup (if you get a second drive) -
I have two hard-drives - I've started using the second partition on first drive (OS partition is only about 40gig) to backup important stuff from my second hard drive. Advantages are that it's hardly ever used (couple of times a day) - I hear a *lot* less hard-drive noise going on since I set things up like this - in fact I now hear hardly any which is nice .

[f0dder]

tomos: I'm saying that I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be just as good creating a 300gig partition as it'd be to LBA-limit the drive to 300gig.