Does partitioning your hard drive optimize Performance?

[lifeisasus]

I was wondering this for years, does partitioning your hard drive optimize performance? I did do some partions and to me it felt really slow after.

Am I wrong did I do something wrong? Here are the steps i took to partition:

1. I deleted all partition

2. Performed a clean full format

3. Created 2 equal partitions on a WD Caviar Blue 500 GO Drive

I then used it as normal and to me felt like a slower drive.

thank you everyone for your help and opinion,

Brian Prive

[azeotrope]

The first partition will be faster than the second, since it its closer to the inside of the drive and the inside tracks hold the same amount of data as the outer tracks. More density will mean that data can be read/written faster. Filesystems tend to spread the data out (NTFS doesn't really though) to avoid fragmentation, so limiting where this data can be stored with partitions can be somewhat advantageous. Here's a good example. On a software level, the partition layer adds an extra layer of overhead for computations, but it's pretty negligable these days.

[Flamewalker]

Pretty much what azeotrope said,and its also a reason why people short stroke their hdd's at the cost of hdd size you can get more constant speed

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=691&pgno=2

[lifeisasus]

Wow! Awesome, thank you very much for those answers!

[Maverik5124]

I thougt the data always has the same data density and because the speed at which the outer tracks move along the head is faster the outer portion of the hard drive is faster? Do any of you know for sure and can correct me?

[Ssoele]

I thougt the data always has the same data density and because the speed at which the outer tracks move along the head is faster the outer portion of the hard drive is faster? Do any of you know for sure and can correct me?

You are correct.

[xkronusx]

I wouldn't think partitioning a HDD would make speed any faster, imagine taking a disk and splitting it into 2 halfs, then one

data arm has to reach to two different locations to move data, i would think it would make it much slower.

[AMICLG]

No it will actually slow down the drive if partition and do something like a dual boot.

[Flamewalker]

If the second partition isn't beeing used you will get the speed benefits still, but the moment the second partition does get accessed, you will get slowdowns

[Liam-Wabbit]

Is your Virtual Memory on the second partition ?

I usually make a small windows partition then dump everything on the second partition. It's very handy because all your data and games is on the second partition if you need to restore windows. The beginning of the drive always faster (first partition), unless it's an SSD, then it doesn't matter. WHEN YOUR PC ACCESSING BOTH PARTITIONS , IT WILL SLOW DOWN ! maybe in the future you'll get your self a second one and set up raid 0

[GoodBytes]

The only advantage of partitioning your HDD, is to make it easier to re-install Windows. Where you don't have to do a backup for all your data just for this task as C:\ will be formatted by Windows (or whatever OS you use) installer. You personal files are already on the D:\ drive, and so is your programs (because D:\ will be a big partition usually) Also if you need to quick access your programs after a re-install, you can.. the great majority of games and programs don't need to be installed in the system in order to work. The Setup that you run to install it, just extract the compressed files. Nothing more. The rest, like file association, is done by the program when you start it). Some people also uses the D:\ partition as a list of application installed, so that they don't miss anything if they desire to re-install them.

Also, dual partition avoids having to re-downlaod, or break your head to backup your games which are several GB big.

So basically, if you re-install Windows, all you do is copy AppData folder form C:\ to D:\, re-install Windows, and then copy AppData from D:\ back to C:\, and now all your programs configuration are back. All you need to do, at worst, is enter the program serial number if any when you first run it.