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10.4: Move swap files to another drive
Authored by: TigerKR on Feb 14, '06 06:07:05PM

Forgive me, but I'm not following you. How would reading a non-continuous stream of data be just as fast as reading a continuous stream?

In a continuous stream of data, the read-head does not need to jump around the platter. Every time the read-head jumps around the platter, your performance is decremented. If you have a really large file that is in many different chunks in different places of your drive's platter, then that theoretical decrement of performance increases in magnitude. If you have several large files that you are currently using, that are in many different chunks in different places of your drive's platter, then your read-head is doing a virtual square dance, and you have to wait for it to finish the Do-si-do. That's not even considering the overhead of having a file-system b-tree that's so bogged with extents branches that it looks like willow tree.

I'm not saying that any of this matters for most users - it doesn't matter for most users. But this hint isn't for most users.



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