Ok, don't know how to word this so thats why I'm having a hard time finding the info.

I have a 250gb hard drive.
When I got it I was only running windows 98 so did not have large drive support. I broke 125 gb in to 2- 40gb and 1-45gb partition with 1-1gb partition, that I dont know where it came from but use it for scratch disk anyway. I was just to lazy to delete it and redo it. So I was only using 125gb.
That got filled up. I am formatting the other 105gb (I know I did the math too, 20 gb is missing somewhere but I cant find it.)

My question is how does the HD create partition in order on the disk????

Example, I now have C, then on second drive will be E,F,G,H and now I.
Is I, being created last, going to be closer to the center of the disc or closer to the edge?

It would make since to write from the center out, but..... that doesn't mean thats what it's doing because there is more room on the outer edges.

The reason I ask is because I have and going to be creating some more very large image files. Like 150MB-200MB each, and about 30-50 of those per week for the next couple of months, and I want to store them as close to the center of the drive as possible hoping for a slightly faster read.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Honest to god opinion here - don't worry about it and buy a new 250GB+ SATA drive or Western Digital Raptor - they're insanely fast and you wouldn't have to worry about any of that.

They're relativley inexpensive (the raptor is for the storage amount). I saw a 500GB SATA drive on sale in Mirco Center a few days ago for $149.99. A good PCI controller card runs around $40 if you don't have on-board SATA, don't forget and overlook that as well.

 

Between the master on this computer, and this drive in the NDAS (Network Attached Storage Drive) housing, is the one I'm working on. So I have 260GB free....... I aint buying sotrage for a few months still!

This one is a western digital 250gb sata. LOVE IT!!!!!

 

It is not going to matter where the are stored, read time will be similar.

It would be better to have a second HDD. Definitely faster. Right now I have 6 HDD. 2 internal totaling 500GB and 4 external in a single case that is ESATA access. Everything totals out at 2.4TB. With the ESATA setup, I don't have to fuss with the USB stop of the drive. It is hot swappable so when I don't need them, I just turn the enclosure off.

 

Yea this one is external on the 10/100, that is the slowest part of it, but is acting as a file sever to the entire network. The reason I use it instead of the internal is becasue of the security from both virus and hackers. Security through obsecurity.

 

The letter of the drive/partition means nothing, as you can change the letters to anything you want. Technically though, the first partition you make will be at the center and it goes out from there. Really, I doubt read times will be that much faster.

As for the ~20GB that you said was missing, that is completely normal. Hard drive manufacturers measure a Gigabyte as 1,000MB, but in reality a Gigabyte is 1,024MB. Also, the actual formatting of the disc takes up a some space.

 

Not that it really matters but hard drives write partitions from the outside to the inside, CDs and DVDs are just the opposite.

Your speed will be about the same because the drive's performance will be basically consistent across the disk. You would be better suited picking a file system that is more efficient, NTFS vs. FAT32.

A little bit of info: Windows limits you to three primary partitions and one extended partition. That extended partition can then be divided as many times as you want but all future "partitions" are actually part of the last or extended partition.

Personally I wouldn't split the drive that much.

System performance and drive space utilization can also be affected based on how the operating system writes data, in either first available or last used sectors. You really can't control much of this so it doesn't matter.

I still think Linux is the king of hdd utilization; speed and space.

Your missing 20 gigs is probably due to the file system you chose and the way the O/S formatted the drives. I'd have to look at it on a much lower level to accurately find out.

BTW....if you are really bored, download this test and get an idea of where the fastest part of your drive is.

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public...request=HdTach

 

That is what I thought, I thought it was backwards to a CD/DVD.

They are NTFS.
I knew when I bought it that I would be getting xp soon, and NTFS is more effecient, 98 will read NTFS you just cant install or run 98 on an NTFS. I never intended for this drive to be anything more than storage it will likely never have an OS on it.

 

Actually.....

Without starting a bunch of crap (among the true geeks among us), FAT32 will actually outperform NTFS in many situations. However, NTFS is a MUCH MUCH MUCH more reliable file system. FAT32 offers no security either.

 

True you can start with Z and end in A, or you can mix them up in any order you desire, but I did not do that and not many people do. I go by the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method. so i go ABC in the right direction. On my wifes computer, same hard drive same location her primary disk has 2 partitions so the drive letters for the same disc on mine are one letter off on hers, but it's the same drive, it hasnt moved off the network. But when it mounts it then it's different letters same names.
I was trying to find out where physically on the drive it wrote the information.
Not what order I assigned the letters.

But now we have 2 conflicting ides on how it writes it........

 

Are you drunker than I am?

 

If you really want the gory ugly details I can give them to you. I warn you they aren't pretty. Try File System Forensic Analysis by Brian Carrier. It gets into the ugly boring, snore.....snore details of file systems.

Its late, I'm tired...

 

I may look into that later, not to night, I'm already brain dead from correcting the photogrpaher errors of these pictures. Sad thing is this is one of our 20 year veteran photographers! WTF?

 

The other guy is probably right, then. My A+ Hardware class was at 7am, so I was usually pretty out of it

 

At 7 am my eyes might be open, but no ones home.