From: "Markku Kolkka" <markkuk@xxxxxxxxx>
Mike McCarty kirjoitti viestissään (lähetysaika keskiviikko, 22.
maaliskuuta 2006 10:52):
Track to track spacing is the same all across the disc.
True.
And
there are the same number of sectors per track as well.
This hasn't been true for at least 10 years. All modern hard
drives use Zone Bit Recording
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_bit_recording)
MiniScribe was doing this at least 15 years ago.
This means data transfer speed is nearly 2x higher on the outer
tracks of the disc. See the "Sequential Transfer Rates" table of
this test of 250GB drives:
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/250_3.html
The notching or zone_bit_recording is done to preserve the areal density
efficiency. So indeed the data rate is lower on the inside tracks AND you
have to face the track to track seek delay more often as well.
'Tis why I recommended swap on outside if you use swap alot. If you do not
use swap much at all put it anywhere but the outside. Put a partition you
use particularly much on the outside. (Of course 100 megabytes or so is
used for /boot right up at front for grub/lilo convenience.)
{^_^}
