[sclug] Newbie, partitioning 120Gb HDD - recommendations?

[Tom Dawes-Gamble]

On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 11:50 +0000, Alex Butcher wrote:

> I agree, modulo the decreasing transfer rate from rotational discs as you
> get closer to the hub (the usual virtual->phsyical mapping used by hard
> discs, though this is not guaranteed). In general, putting active partitions
> (e.g. /tmp, /var/cache, /home, /usr) near the beginning of the disc gives
> better performance than putting them at the end (a good place for
> /var/spool, though).
> 

I'm not sure about this idea that it's faster to put things near the
centre or the perimeter.  If the track at the centre has the same number
of sectors as the track at the outside then the packing density is
greater in the centre  *BUT* it takes the same time for the outer
sectors to pass under the head as it does for the inner sectors.  Both
the inner and outer parts of the disk are doing the same RPM therefore
you get the same Sectors per Revolution  Since all sectors on the disk
are the same size you get the same Bytes per Revolution.

regards,
Tom.