[linux-audio-user] Hard disk housekeeping

[Steve Harris]

On Mon, Aug 01, 2005 at 10:50:48 +0100, anahata wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 01, 2005 at 10:27:58PM +0100, John Mulholland wrote:
> > When it comes to a CD the data written on the outer edge is 
> > read faster But, whats the deal with a hard disk?
> > 
> HD spins at constant speed, and all modern HDs are zoned so they
> have more sectors on the edge than in the middle. Now you have to work
> out whether they start at the middle or the edge - the middle I think but
> don't quote me. If that's right you'll get faster performance on the
> higher numbered sectors, which I suppose means they are the ones you'll 
> want to use for audio.

I dont think its that simple, theres not a linear mapping between the
sector numbers and the position on the disk, and in any case theres
multiple platters.

Historically disk benchmarks used to how higher performance near the
"start" of the disk (low numbers I guess), and that still seems to be true
in some cases
(http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050714/hitachi_deskstar-02.html#data_transfer_diagram),
but how that maps to the represented sector numbers, I have no idea.

Overall I'd say it doesnt matter too much, modern disk are fast enough for
audio. Having a future proof expansion scheme is much more important, and
speaking of which, LVM is just fantastic.

- Steve