23031_676@uwovax.uwo.ca (01/12/90)
I recently bought a Nec PowerMate 286, 10 mhz, with a Priam drive. Access speed
is supposed to be about 30 but is actually 50 with data thruput about 650. The
disc is not partitioned; it is 42 mb. I asked the service magager of the dealer
if the speed of access would be improved by partitioning as 30/12, and he has
denied it. Does anybody know whether he is wrong, i.e., that access would
improve notably if partitioned?
.
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Ben Singer Department of Sociology
University of Western Ontario
Singer@uwo.ca London, Ontario
Singer@uwovax.bitnet N6A 5C2
(519) 660-0671 (home)
(519) 679-2111 Ext 5137u-dmfloy%ug.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Daniel M Floyd) (01/12/90)
Partitioning does not speed up the access time. However, your apparent disk speed will improve because the time it takes to do many disk operations is a function of the disk size. For example average seek time will improve - not because the disk itself can find data quicker, but because all your data will be clumped together by partitions. Dan Floyd 8<D=
cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) (01/14/90)
Well, whether or not partitioning would speed up your accesses depends
on whether or not you're using files on the same partition or not, and how
full your hard disk is.
On a hard disk with a single partition, the possibility is there that
to retrieve two files, the head may have to travel from one edge of the
disk to the other (or, if you're really full up and fragmented, the same
can happen for one file). If you partition the disk and stay on one par-
tition for your two files, there is obviously a smaller upper limit to the
amount of head travel requried. Therefore, disk accesses will be faster.
However, if you have one file on one partition and the other file on the
other partition, the head will likely have to travel farther than it would
have otherwise.
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Stephen M. Dunn cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
<std_disclaimer.h> = "\nI'm only an undergraduate!!!\n";
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If it's true that love is only a game//Well, then I can play pretendstevel@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Steve Ligett) (01/24/90)
In article <4653.25acd701@uwovax.uwo.ca> 23031_676@uwovax.uwo.ca writes:
.I recently bought a Nec PowerMate 286, 10 mhz, with a Priam drive. Access speed
.is supposed to be about 30 but is actually 50 with data thruput about 650. The
.disc is not partitioned; it is 42 mb. I asked the service magager of the dealer
.if the speed of access would be improved by partitioning as 30/12, and he has
.denied it. Does anybody know whether he is wrong? ...
Bob Gibson (of SpinRite fame (did I get that right?)) once wrote in
InfoWorld that he partioned his 18 ms drive into five partitions,
giving an average access time of less than 4 ms. ha ha ha ha ha ha
But seriously folks, the average seek time of part of a drive (a
partition) will be less than that of a whole drive.
--
steve.ligett@dartmouth.edu or ...!dartvax!steve.ligett