Re: [TCLUG:1804] Reinstalling -- How should I partition?

[trammell@nitz.hep.umn.edu]

Hello all:

>
> Your swap partition(s) should always be in the first partition, as it is
> closest to the center of the disk and has the fastest response. 
>

Hmm.  This is a new one on me.  In the Partition Mini-Bibl... err,
Mini-HOWTO, I find:

3.3 Where should I put my swap space? 

     Mechanics are slow, electronics are fast. Modern hard disks have
     many heads. Switching between heads of the same track is fast,
     since it is purely electronic. Switching between tracks is slow,
     since it involves moving real world matter. So if you have a disk
     with many heads and one with less heads and both are identical in
     other parameters, the disk with many heads will be faster.
     Splitting swap and putting it on both disks will be even faster,
     though.

     Older disks have the same number of sectors on all tracks. With
     this disks it will be fastest to put your swap in the middle of
     the disks, assuming that your disk head will move from a random
     track towards the swap area.

     Newer disks use ZBR (zone bit recording). They have more sectors on
     the outer tracks. With a constant number of rpms, this yields a far
     greater performance on the outer tracks than on the inner ones. Put
     your swap on the fast tracks. 

     Of course your disk head will not move randomly. If you have swap
     space in the middle of a disk between a constantly busy home
     partition and an almost unused archive partition, you would be
     better off if your swap were in the middle of the home partition
     for even shorter head movements. You would be even better off, if
     you had your swap on another otherwise unused disk, though. 

     Summary: Put your swap on a fast disk with many heads that is not
     busy doing other things. If you have multiple disks: Split swap and
     scatter it over all your disks or even different controllers. 

     Even better: Buy more RAM. 

At this point I'm sorely tempted to go buy one of those cheapo IDE
drives and install it for nefarious swap and RAID purposes...

Moohaha,
John