why is moving files between partition but on the same drive slow?

[komo_cakeps]

and why isn't it as instant as when moving files on the same drive on the same partition? what made having multiple partitions made it that much a difference?

[alatron978]

Because the data is still physically being moved on that drive.

[komo_cakeps]

huh? it's at the same drive? and by that logic shouldn't moving files in same partition be just as that slow?

[Firewrath9]

4 minutes ago, komo_cakeps said:

huh? it's at the same drive? and by that logic shouldn't moving files in same partition be just as that slow?

becuase you have to move the stuff from the partition to the ram, back to the other partition

[samcool55]

3 minutes ago, komo_cakeps said:

huh? it's at the same drive? and by that logic shouldn't moving files in same partition be just as that slow?

Every partition has a partition table. Basically a big excel form that tells which file is where (it's more complicated than that, but not important here)

If you move (not copy) an item from 1 location to another one on the SAME partition, only the partition table gets updated, which can be done very fast because it's just editing an excel document, can be done really fast. The actual location of the files does NOT change, only the table.

 

If you move files from one partition on another drive (does not matter if it's on the same physical drive) the files do get moved to a different position, and that takes time. So not only the partition tables get updated in this case but the actual location of the files changes as well.

[mariushm]

On the same partition, the operating system simply has to go in the list of files and folders and just edit a few characters.. saying this file now belongs to that folder, instead of this folder.  It's literally saying "file abc.txt 's folder is not C:\Games instead of C:\Games\Minecraft

The data isn't physically moved on the surface of the hard drive or SSD.

 

When you have two partitions, each partition has its own list of files and folders, and those lists contain information about where the files and folders are located... like for example file abc.mp3 starts at 1200 MB from the beginning of the partition and uses 1 MB.

The list of files of partition A can't contain an entry saying "this file is physically located on partition B at so many MB from the beginning of partition B"

The file must be copied on partition A, then an entry is made into the list of files and folders for partition A saying where the file was put, then the entry is deleted from partition B's list of files and folders and the space used by the file on partition B is made available to be overwritten by other files.

 

Each partition is like a school classroom with its own teacher that keeps track of students (files) while the whole hard drive is the school. Each classroom is its own kingdom with its own rules.

You can change desks within a classroom and the teacher simply keeps track of you but if you want to move to another classroom you have to move everything and involve teachers to transfer you and you have to move your stuff to new classroom and so on.

Maybe it's not a good analogy but that's the first thing that came to mind.