Partitioning for Performance: Hitachi 7K500 Benchmark Setup Specifics

[leslieann]

Interesting. I was always under the impression the opposite was true, or at least a long while back a dell rep told me the the fuller a hard drive becomes (assuming windows is on the same partition as storage) the slower it would run. I should know better.

Yeah, and Dell reps have been known to day an Intel 950 is better than an Intel HD4500. Dell reps are no better than asking the salesman at Best buy in most cases.

It is however true that full drive will be slower. Short stroking doesn't mean cutting a drive down to nothing, just smaller. The smaller the partition, the more you gain and the faster you lose that gain.

Most people doing this either reformat often, or don't keep enough data there to worry about. I use the same rule as SSD, never put more data than 50% capacity. Beyond that, any drive will be losing a lot of performance.

And that's the primary reason I use 2 partitions.

It's better to use two drives. Better yet, setup a file server with gigabit ethernet. This can handle downloads, movie streaming, routing, remote networking... pretty much anything you want. Allowing to short stroke, format, and play all you want with less hassle or fear.

which says in fact that there actually is no reallife performance gain by short-stroking your harddrive and losing most of the capacity. they also refer to the article by Tom's Hardware.

Correct, you can see it in benchmarks, that's all, same as most overclocks.

I only did it last time to see how fast I could get a set of (raid 0) Raptors to run out of curiosity, and while they did run faster I saw no discernable difference in speed compared to running a single Wd Black drive. What I did do though, is double my chances of data loss, increase drive noise and use more electricity all for a better benchmark.

As mentioned, how far you short stroke is key to any differences, but there is no set rule that I know of for how much you should shorten.

[Destiny]

Just a quick question... Those TMP and TEMP pointers you refer to in you guide... That is set by Windows automaticly or do I need to change it myself?

[Krane]

I just have found some really interesting articles/discussions regarding the "short stroking":
- some tests by Tom's Hardware which somehow shows the I/O-advantage you could gain (also read the comments)
- this short explanation
and finally a discussion which says in fact that there actually is no reallife performance gain by short-stroking your harddrive and losing most of the capacity. they also refer to the article by Tom's Hardware.

It would be nice to hear the opinion of the threadstarter "tilleroftheearth" here.

I think a lot of the speed advantages are anecdotal since it depends on your components and software as a whole. And since no two systems are exactly alike, a performance advantage may be true for some, yet non-existent for others.

On the other hand, I also believe that sometimes many suggestions such as these may be dated since improvements are being made continuously across the industry which can mask or negate some traditional procedures that made measurable improvements in the past.

For example, RAID 0 was instituted primarily to overcome the relatively sluggish nature of past mechanical storage devices and components. And even then, use largely for business applications.

[othonda]

I’ve been thinking about how I was going to set up my new rig (in my sig) and this is what I was planning to do:

160Gig Intel G2 SSD
C:\ 100Gig - Used for OS and programs
D:\ 60Gig - Used for my FS Simming install and files

320 Gig Standard platter drive
E:\ 60Gig - Use for TMP, TEMP, Pagefile, Hybernatefile, Firefox, IE Cache, Downloads folder
F:\ 260Gig – Rest of my data, etc..

This thread changed my set up a little by adding the E partition to get a little bit of that “Short Stroking” to speed up that part of the set up. Otherwise I was going to have the 320Gig drive as just one big partition, and use it the same way as E:\ and F:\ was described.

I know how hard drives work, but was not thinking about the increase in speed by putting stuff that you want faster first.

Good Thread!!

[leslieann]

Large files actually work better at the outside of a conventional drive.

Something to keep in mind with rotational drives...
Inner tracks access faster, outer tracks transfer faster. So if you need to access lots of small files, the inside is where you want them. If you have one large file, like hyberfil.sys and the pagefile, you are better off with those on the outside track, and defragged, where the system can access and rip through them. Windows often places Hiberfil and pagefile in the center of the drive, this way the transfer speed is better without killing your access time.


If you really want speed...
Put a small partition on Wiindows, since it uses mostly small files. Same with temp and internet cache.

Then put a second drive with 2 partitions, one large one, then a second very small, and delete the first. This leaves you a small partition at the outside of the drive to use for hyberfill and pagefile. Also good for games with big files, like flightsim maps or fps maps.

As soon as you have two partitions though, you will see a drop in speed. Grab a spare drive and test it. Access times go up. Granted I will give you that using a second drive for swap is a good idea though. Another issue is that odds are, the 320 is faster then the 160.

The bigger thing to consider though is the speed boost will be negligible. You likely will not be able to tell.

If it was me...
160Gig Intel G2 SSD
160 partition Windows and gaming files
(If this was a standard drive I might short stroke it to 110gigs and call it done)

320 Gig Standard platter drive
320gig hyberfill, installers and personal stuff

I often keep everything needed to re-install on a second drive or partition that way I only need a windows disk to re-install if something happens.

[othonda]

As soon as you have two partitions though, you will see a drop in speed. Grab a spare drive and test it. Access times go up. Granted I will give you that using a second drive for swap is a good idea though. Another issue is that odds are, the 320 is faster then the 160.

It was late when you posted, The 320 is NOT faster that the 160. The 160 is an SSD, it's an order of magnitude faster.

If it was me...
160Gig Intel G2 SSD
160 partition Windows and gaming files
(If this was a standard drive I might short stroke it to 110gigs and call it done)

The reason for splitting this up is FS files are constantly being changed by adding, subtracting files tweaking, etc. I want to take snap shot backups of that partition at certain times. If you hose an install of FS its a lot of work to reinstall.

So that in not even up for adjustment consideration.

320 Gig Standard platter drive
320gig hyberfill, installers and personal stuff

I may think about that some more, based on how I use my puter. There is a mix of large and small files that would be using the temp folders, but the pagefile is big. I also probably won't use hybernate that much so disabling that would save another large file. my download folder will mostly be smaller files with the occasional large file.

So as you see there are pluses and minuses to the location I put the two partitions at. Also would I notice the differences, probably not.

The biggest benefit I see is moving the constantly changing files off the SSD to reduce the amount of write cycles on my drive.

[James D]

question: how to move "Temporary pointers TMP and TEMP"? just the same way as folders Dowloads, my music and others? There is 1 file in C:\Temp which I can't move. Even in safe mode. Could anyone tell me what to do? And what exactly temp folders to move (there are many of them)

[chimpanzee]

boot into linux and remove it.

[James D]

boot into linux and remove it.

It could be Great Advise!.. But I can boot 2-nd Windows I have and remove last file. But still that file always creates while Windows 7 boots.

I found a solution in additional properties of My computer. The question now is should I change the path of only users temp folders or system too?

[chimpanzee]

strange. Windows byitself should not be using C:\Temp as it has its own temp location under c:\windows\temp if I am not mistaken.

If you are not talking about safe mode, I would think it is due do some programs you have installed. But safe mode I assume would not load or run any of them.

you can try to set the global environment variable TEMP=... and TMP=... and see if it helps.

edit:
another possibility, have you been hitted by virus ?