A quick and easy performance improvement

[Alex Neuman van der Hans]

Mike Jakubik wrote:
> I don't think thats very true. Most systems that are setup with a 
> single / partition are done so by the clueless. Separating your 
> partitions gives you a number of advantage including protection from 
> disk space starvation, and increased performance when they are 
> strategically laid out.
>
I believe the last statement to be somewhat inaccurate. Most systems set 
up by the clueless are set up not with a single / partition, but with a 
single C:\ partition ;-) - although, to be honest, I set up 90% of my 
systems using one big /, one small /boot, and 2x-4x RAM for swap. I 
*did* acquire a clue some time ago, it isn't much, but it's served me 
well the past couple of years.
> Hard drives can transfer data much more quickly from outer tracks than 
> they can from inner tracks.  To take advantage of this you should try 
> to pack your smaller file systems and swap closer to the outer tracks, 
> follow with the larger file systems,  and end with the largest file 
> systems.
>
Unless you're moving billions of messages per second (I know, I know, I 
*am* exaggerating), the improvements are marginal. Sounds like when 
someone asked me the other day what the difference was between, say, a 
2Ghz Celeron vs. a 2Ghz P4 on otherwise identical machines. My answer? 
Your word processor will take 2-3 seconds less to load. Otherwise you 
won't know the difference. For "ordinary" work, the performance 
difference can be negligible in many circumstances.
> Separate partitions also allow different mount options, and in the 
> event of data loss due to power outages, etc, it is more likely that 
> the system will still come up, making it easier for you to restore 
> from backup as necessary.
Of course, you *do* try to keep backups good enough for a bare-metal 
restore anyways, right? And a rescue cd? There is an expression in 
Spanish, "cada maestro con su librito", which roughly translates to 
"every teacher brings his own little book". To each his own, I guess.
>
> Finally some operating system such as FreeBSD automatically optimize 
> the layout of files on a file system, depending on how the file system 
> is being used. So a file system that contains many small files that 
> are written frequently will have a different optimization to one that 
> contains fewer, larger files. By having one big file system this 
> optimization breaks down.
>
That means it's not automatic, then, right? ;-)
> Of course one should always size the partitions according to 
> requirements.
>
>

Disclaimer: This message is not to be construed as flamebait, trollbait, 
or disrespect. I'm just trying to contribute my 2c. Now where's that 
asbestos suit when you need it?...