[mythtv-users] Planning Tuners and Disk I/O for a MythTVBackend System

[Raymond Wagner]

On 2/9/2010 02:35, MythTV wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-users-
>> bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Raymond Wagner
>> Sent: Tuesday, 9 February 2010 6:22 PM
>> To: Discussion about mythtv
>> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Planning Tuners and Disk I/O for a
>> MythTVBackend System
>>
>> On 2/9/2010 02:16, MythTV wrote:
>>      
>>> Opinions vary on this topic, but on a single disk, breaking it into
>>> multiple
>>> partitions increases seek time significantly.
>>>
>>> For example, /dev/sdb2 = livetv and /dev/sdb3 = recordings..
>>>
>>> If you watch live tv WHILE recording, the disk head will need to
>>>        
> seek
>    
>>> from
>>> one extreme to another.
>>>
>>>        
>> That makes absolutely no sense.  The disk doesn't care how your
>> partitions are set up.  It's going to have to seek from one file to
>>      
> the
>    
>> other regardless.
>>      
> That makes absolutely no sense.
>    

The disk is going to have to seek any time you do anything other than 
sequential access.  If you are reading one file while writing another, 
the disk will keep seeking back and forth between those two files.  It 
makes no difference whether they're on the same or separate partitions.  
Claiming partitioning will increase, decrease, or in any way affect how 
much you seek is blatantly false.