Can sorting data to the outer edge of your disk actually make a difference? If so, how significant?

[TriGaar]

Saw a discussion about someone not wanting to buy an SSD but wanting better loading times. It resulted in this comment. I understand that the outer edge of the disk has a higher linear velocity than the inner edge, but I am skeptical about this making a notable difference in performance. 

 

 

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It does make quite a bit of difference.  Back before SSDs really became a thing, we used to make small partitions for the OS on the first (outer) part of the HDD.  That made sure that all OS-related files were on the fastest part of the platter.  Look up "short stroking" for more info on this.

 

 

The leftmost part of the graph above is the outside of the HDD, the right side is the inside.  The difference in speed is definitely noticeable. 

Access time is lower as well on the outside.

[TriGaar]

55 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

It does make quite a bit of difference.  Back before SSDs really became a thing, we used to make small partitions for the OS on the first (outer) part of the HDD.

That's pretty cool! Shows how young I am in the PC space.

 

What program could be the best way to do this and what are is best current-day use cases? 

I have a 1TB SSD already so I'm not too worried my HDD speeds or about it for myself, but just for future reference. 

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37 minutes ago, TriGaar said:

What program could be the best way to do this and what are is best current-day use cases? 

I have a 1TB SSD already so I'm not too worried about it for myself, but just for future reference. 

On an SSD it isn't needed indeed. 

 

If you want to do it on a HDD, you can do it with Windows' own Disk Management, with EaseUs Partition Master or most other software that can do partitioning. 

You can also use the Windows installer itself if you're doing a fresh install.  Just tell it how big you want the OS partition to be and it'll automatically create that partition on the first (fastest) part of the HDD.  Then once the PC is up and running, you can always create the slower partition using Windows' Disk Management tool.

 

As for current-day cases, at work we use 1TB HDDs in our laptops and we did short-stroke them.  The first 200GB partition for the OS, the slower partition for the Dropbox folder and user folders.  

Apart from that I see little reason ... unless you would keep your Steam Library on a HDD and want to get the most performance out of that. 

With the current SSD prices and capacities, there is little reason for most people to worry about HDDs anymore.