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

[Steve Hodge]

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 8:44 PM, Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com> wrote:

> 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.


Seek time does depend on how far the head has to move. If two files are in a
separate partitions then you are guaranteed to have to seek the distance
between the two partitions every time you switch from accessing one file to
the other. If they are in the same partition (and the single partition
covers the same area as the two separate partitions did) then the two files
may be closer or further than that, depending on how the filesystem is laid
out. It'd depend mainly how full the partition is and how many other files
were written between the two you're accessing. It is certainly false to say
that it makes no difference whether they're on the same or separate
partitions.

Cheers,
Steve
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