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Using a Partition to Speed a HDD?

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Okay, I understand that first 1/3 of a HDD is going to be the fastest. I believe this is primarily because the data will be placed in the outer portion of the platters which are "faster" at a given r.p.m.

My question is this: Can I partition a HDD into 1/3 and 2/3 segments and have the 1/3 segment placed on the fastest part of the HDD? The goal would be to use that small (faster?) partition for applications and have the remainder for basic data storage. If this is possible and makes sense, is there a special way I need to create the partition in Win7 to make sure the 1/3 segment is in the fastest portion of the drive?

Finally, would it matter if I were using two HDD in a RAID 0 and wanted to partition the combined drive this way--1/3 and 2/3?

Thanks!

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dabesq said:
Okay, I understand that first 1/3 of a HDD is going to be the fastest. I believe this is primarily because the data will be placed in the outer portion of the platters which are "faster" at a given r.p.m.

My question is this: Can I partition a HDD into 1/3 and 2/3 segments and have the 1/3 segment placed on the fastest part of the HDD? The goal would be to use that small (faster?) partition for applications and have the remainder for basic data storage. If this is possible and makes sense, is there a special way I need to create the partition in Win7 to make sure the 1/3 segment is in the fastest portion of the drive?

Finally, would it matter if I were using two HDD in a RAID 0 and wanted to partition the combined drive this way--1/3 and 2/3?

Thanks!


lol, wut? The speed of the disk would be even all over. Sure, the disk is technically less dense on the outside, but the relative RPM is also higher on the outside.

Depending upon platter size, at a fixed rpm a point on the outside edge is traveling at a "linear" speed perhaps twice as fast or more than a point on the inside edge. It is my understanding that this is why the first 1/3 of storage on a HDD is the fastest. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

dabesq said:
Depending upon platter size, at a fixed rpm a point on the outside edge is traveling at a "linear" speed perhaps twice as fast or more than a point on the inside edge. It is my understanding that this is why the first 1/3 of storage on a HDD is the fastest. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.


Correct. It travels faster (as I said) but it's also half as dense. :) 

Okay, then I guess I don't understand why the first 1/3 of capacity is supposed to be much faster. I realize you can't fill a drive 100%, but surely the temporary file/other overhead processes don't require 2/3 of a HDD. Sorry for the newbie questions, but I guess if I don't ask, I'll never learn. Thanks!

dabesq said:
Okay, then I guess I don't understand why the first 1/3 of capacity is supposed to be much faster. I realize you can't fill a drive 100%, but surely the temporary file/other overhead processes don't require 2/3 of a HDD. Sorry for the newbie questions, but I guess if I don't ask, I'll never learn. Thanks!


No way, you're right. I'm a heavy user and right now I have a 6GB page file and 600MB of temporary files. So unless you have a 10GB HDD, then yeah, it won't take 2/3 of your drive.
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