SurClaro Flight Simulator Resources

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 6:24 pm Post subject: Please explain partitions to me

If I have one hard drive and make two partitions for it, say ntfs, then why is it better to have the swap file on one and game files on the other? it is still the same physical drive and the heads still have to move at least the same distance, so why the gain in speed?

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 6:46 pm Post subject:

There isn't much of one, if any, if you're using one physical drive split into several multiple drives. Any advantage you would see could only come from having separate file systems, since there's only one physical path between the drive and motherboard.

I may be wrong, especially if there's newer software or caching technologies that enhace single-drive performance, but in my years of working with computers, we always used separate physical drives for scratch or data disks.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 7:00 pm Post subject:

I think maybe Tenspace is right.

I have heard, and I believe it is true, that it makes a difference if you have two separate physical drives and then have the OS on one and the swapfile on the other. And it also improves performance if, instead of letting windows manage your swap file, you allocate a fixed amount of space for the same (by setting the min and max swap file sizes to the same number) since the system then reserves one contigous area of the drive permanently for the swap file.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 7:25 pm Post subject:

hmm. i've seen many people suggest having swaps and games on different partitions. well, guess they're wrong. thought so. thanks guys.