2 platter HD. .. idle thoughts. .

[accidentalsuccess]

ok, so pretty much every guide says to put you OS and stuff where the HD access it fastest. If there are 2 HD platters are they in effect striped via "platter RAID" or is there some magic "sweet spot" where you start hitting the other platter for faster access about halfway through your HD capacity?

just a thought I had last night after several beers and waiting for my xbox to load the next MK level.

 

[Snugglebear]

If the data was addressed in a linear fashion accross the platters then you would see early drops in performance when running benchmarks like HDtach. Instead of getting what looks like half a hill, starting high and then dropping, you would see valleys and cliffs, starting high, dropping, then going high again and likewise dropping. This is not the case. Drives do not RAID the platters, either. Sectors are written to one side of a platter or the other, the bits are not broken up like in RAID.

 

[Ice Czar]

Difference between Tracks and Cylinders
Hard Disk Read\Write Head Operation, Number of Read\Write Heads
"Only one head can read from or write to the hard disk at a given time. Special circuitry is used to control which head is active at any given time."

 

[accidentalsuccess]

thx guys. . .was lazy as I posted this while I was burning some stuff to CD in prep for installing my new HD (SG 160 gig, w00t!).

Makes sense, in hindsight, that both heads can't move at the same time. .. vibration issues and the like.

Thanks, as always, for the [H] replies.

AS

 

[Ice Czar]

actually all the arms\heads move together
there is only one actuator
but only one head writes\reads at a time