Wrong! Faster on the outside as there is more physical disk space so more physical sectors are there.
Hard Drive Partitioning - Is it worth it?
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Wrong! Faster on the outside as there is more physical disk space so more physical sectors are there.
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When there's a difference of opinion and someone starts droning: "I've worked for blah blah years in the blah blah industry", as if others should automatically defer to their authority on that basis, it does tend to rub people the wrong way.
It doesn't matter if you're a roadsweeper or a Nobel laureate (or claim to be), this is an anonymous web forum and I'm afraid your arguments will have to stand or fall on their own merits, just like those of everyone else.
dear oh dear... please have a long hard think about what you've just said, and why "Wrong!" was the wrong response...
Almost. The outer edge spins faster AND has more bits per rotation = higher data throughput. Only really inportant for larger sequential reads. Small non sequential reads would show less of a performance gain from being on the outer edge of the platter. Other than a placebo effect mind
Trivia, the read/write heads are parked at the outside of the drive. They swing from outside, to the inside, so they hit the outer tracks first, as well as those tracks having more data flying by at a faster speed. They have to travel over the width of the platters to get to the slower inner tracks, a double whammy on access speed. Which is why we look at "sustained throughput" of computer devices. USB technically can work fast enough to do video work, but only at "burst" speeds, it can't "sustain" the data speeds long enough to be efficient. Same concept there.
Assuming you don't have multiple hard disks, partitions are - or rather used to be! - essential for booting more than one operating system (Windows/Linux). Most users don't want or need to do this, however.
Partitionas are also helpful for separating Windows (which you might want/need to reinstall) from your data - movies, music, pictures - which you don't want to have to reinstall. Programs are a different matter. Reinstalling Windows will destroy the registry settings a program installed, often requiring that you re-install this program again to have it work properly.
The primary benefit of partitions is organisational rather than any performance consideration. Partitioning effectively lets you treat one disk as multiple, smaller disks. This means you can erase one of these "disks" without effecting the others. The advantages of that are obvious when you've ever needed to reinstall Windows, or wanted to have more than one copy of Windows (or Linux) at the same time.
Note: when building PCs for most people I don't use partitions. People are used to installing everything on "C:", and partitioning the drive would most likely result in confusion and increased support calls from irate people who've run out of disk space
Without tweaking Windows defaults to installing all new programs to "C:". When partitioning you have to make sure either your C: partition is big enough to install Windows + all your programs, or pay careful attention to program installers to choose the correct drive (partitions show up as separate drives in Windows).
Partitionas are also helpful for separating Windows (which you might want/need to reinstall) from your data - movies, music, pictures - which you don't want to have to reinstall. Programs are a different matter. Reinstalling Windows will destroy the registry settings a program installed, often requiring that you re-install this program again to have it work properly.
The primary benefit of partitions is organisational rather than any performance consideration. Partitioning effectively lets you treat one disk as multiple, smaller disks. This means you can erase one of these "disks" without effecting the others. The advantages of that are obvious when you've ever needed to reinstall Windows, or wanted to have more than one copy of Windows (or Linux) at the same time.
Note: when building PCs for most people I don't use partitions. People are used to installing everything on "C:", and partitioning the drive would most likely result in confusion and increased support calls from irate people who've run out of disk space
Without tweaking Windows defaults to installing all new programs to "C:". When partitioning you have to make sure either your C: partition is big enough to install Windows + all your programs, or pay careful attention to program installers to choose the correct drive (partitions show up as separate drives in Windows).