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DD is messing with my mind ?
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This has been the strangest thing to me for a very long time. I use to read that the beginning of a hard disk drive was the fastest section of the HDD and that the inner drive was the slowest because the arm has to work so much harder. I really don't see it that way but that's what the INTERNET say, including my old textbook. Anyway, if this is true than why every time I always get these same results. I do this with Arch_Live CD or from an EXTENDED install of Arch living on partition-5... It takes care of my FreeBSD and PcBSD installs. I use it for doing backups and clean-ups. It maybe useless but it's a habit to zero-out each partition before giving it his OS back. This is what I get every time (give or take a few sec/min): dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 - - than sda2 - - than sda3 Partition-1 107 479 701 504 bytes | 100 GB - 4445 second | byte = 1 hour 15 minute Partition-2 107 479 733 760 bytes | 100 GB - 1118 second | byte = 0 hour 18 minute Partition-3 322 430 814 720 bytes | 300 GB - 3537 second | byte = 0 hour 59 minute It takes over an hour on P1 to do the same job of the same size on P2. It only takes minutes on P2 ... Even P3 triple in size is fastest than P1 ... and this never fail on my Seagate 1000GB, and I have notice the same on other brands of HDD's in the pass. It drives me crazy. There, I finally asked somebody. Thanks in advance |
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Maybe this can help to explain my question a little better. Please take a look at the attached chart below. It is one of the many re-used charts that points no where and never speak of direction. 1) Where is this so-called outermost partition on the chart? 2) Is the innermost of the hard-drive located where the big hole (center gray circle) starts from? 3) If so, do this mean that the purple and green parts is the outermost of the hard-drive? 4) When you create partitions in this order (1 2 3 4). Do it turn-into (4 3 2 1) or (2 4 3 1) with-out your knowledge or is it like stacking ABC blocks as one would imagine? .... .... Take a look at my list again. This is the way I created my partitions; I used Arch-Live CD cfdisk. Could you or someone please explain to me and/or mark the chart attached below and re-post it to indicate an idea of where each partition actually lives (by it number). Can you mark the the inner and outer parts to indicate where they are on a real hard-drive. Can you point the in which partitons are actually created ... and than an answer to my original question if possible? Partition-1 100 GB - 4445 second | byte = 1 hour 15 minute Partition-2 100 GB - 1118 second | byte = 0 hour 18 minute Partition-3 300 GB - 3537 second | byte = 0 hour 59 minute Partition-4 EXTENDED is from 501MB -1000MB -- nothing on it yet. .... .... Last edited by sharris; 13th June 2011 at 07:07 AM. |
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Bashrules means that you (or the software) may have created your slices as 1 > 3 > 2 in that order. Check the output of fdisk, i.e. the starting and ending sectors/blocks of each slice.
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How do I do that? Do I need to post the FreeBSD system-install numbers that has all the block information for all three dirives... They are all UFS partitions and are dual-boot to run any of the three BSD OS.
I'll get thim right now, give me a minute to write thime out. I think I got a copy somewhere. |
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see the gPart attachment below:
Don't forget to fill in the chart for those who have an idea somewhere down the line. 50 year latter is ok also. It will help a lot.
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My PARTITIONS (not slices) are clean (no crud) and in the order that I posted. Than I add each OS in this order. Code:
Partition 1 1000GB -- FreeBSD 9.0 Partition 2 1000GB -- PcBSD 9.0 Partition 3 3000GB -- PcBSD 8.2 Partition 4 Arch-LINUX and storage FreeBSD Disklabel Editor: Disk:ad4 - Partition name: ad4s1 - Free: 6145292 blocks - (3000MB) Disk:ad4 - Partition name: ad4s2 - Free: 4918665 blocks - (2401MB) Disk:ad4 - Partition name: ad4s3 - Free: 6156261 blocks - (3005MB) Please don't question about the free-space above it's just something I was playing with yesterday. Let me give you the whole picture in less words as possible. (but impossible for me to do) 1. I got 3 BSD on one hard-drive which is uncommon, right. 2. I got a 500MB extended partition with Arch running GRUB and for plenty of room storing my backups, my way. 3. After I got my dream setup (wallpaper, bash_color, programs installed) for all my BSD's (not in VM's) I boot to ARCH-LINUX and dd-gzip each at will and save them to extended-partition-somewhere_xx. 4. Than I dd (zero-out) the partition my back-up was save from ... (ONE AT A TIME) if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 2 and 3 ... and I keep a list of how long it take for dd to do its job for each of the three PARTITIONS. It's a habit. Now I know it is CLEAN. I don't pile a clean-copy of an partuions back on to of the old one. Something might slip-in or is it useless ... big deal, this is how I do things, even for your machine. 5. Now I restore each back-up (one at a time) and I record that too which is usually the same amount of time ... that is so great. Now I know what I am in for during time of emergency or fixing my customer machine (THEY LOVE ME). Nothing is better than have a COPY of the full partition just in case your last dump caught a bug. I do this very often for many of my customers so it's second nature to me. According to google I can't find the original thread that showed me how-to do this thing anymore. It been years. I guest just like Windows every one want to be the only OS on a giant partition (non-split to share with others) running VM's in his world only. I don't know what to guest anymore. This is like CRAZY Man and it's not a no big deal to setup! Disk-Destroyer (dd) don't care, that's why there is no excuse for this and it only proves that the inner part of a HDD is faster than the outer. Maybe the expert HDD maker never tried it this way. They test the whole drive and not partitions so they had the chance to learn their own stuff. You be surprise what even Bill Gates don't know about Apple and visa versa. They teach us all to do everything by the book so that you never learn jack sh*t else, including ALL BSD, execpt netBSD maybe. I hope someone will try it and provide the correct answers to all my questions. I need answers to prove these speeds cmp's wrong or a one-line correction in every textbook in the world! Tell me what you need and I'll lay it out for you. I think I am correct to say inner drive is the fastest, EVER! I hope you can help me to find to truth |
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Bashrules' observation still holds.
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I had no sleep myself, but with this tip and Bashrules' quick note I think there something good that I can added. By right it should take me days but I'll do my best over night. You can fill in the missing pieces and lock it down once and for all. Thank you so much. See you guys during regular hours Quote:
.... .... jggimi, I think I heard something like that before. It really get down to the hardware and bytes, like dumping the OS and running off on it's own, FOR-REAL. That's what I think dd really do, and now I think I see the light of the speed difference if some one know tell me the true rule of inner and outer. The most important part of the question that may solve all. Quote:
Thanks Last edited by sharris; 13th June 2011 at 06:22 PM. |
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^ I was just doing a quick search to find that page.
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Standard MBR: [ S1 ][ S2 ][ S3 ][ S4 ] BSD labels: [P1|P2|P3 ][P1|P2|P3|P4|P5 ][P1 |P2 ][P1|P2|P3 |P4 ] Same thing for partitions. Within S1, P1 will be faster than P2, etc. Logically, P1 within S1 will be faster than P1 within S2, and so on. Quote:
Inner: situated farther in; being near a center.
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I see there has been a lot of visitor to this thread so I removed the fun part just in case someone mom got a tracker on my system.
Notice how the ARM sit's at the center during initiation. This indicates to me that the MBR is at the CENTER of the HDD living on top of the hard-disk controller... I am the hole in your round HDD ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am the hard-Disk-Controller ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am the MBR ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am EXTENDED 4 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am PRIMARY 3 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am PRIMARY 2 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am PRIMARY 1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Now lets look at it the other way around and maybe somebody, someday can tell us which way is UP! Also image that the MBR is at first 1024byte - Most OUTER limit of the HDD in both cases. I am the hole in your round HDD ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am the Hard-Disk controler ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am the MBR ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am PRIMARY 1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am PRIMARY 2 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am PRIMARY 3 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I am EXTENDED 4 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If the MBR lives at bottom I go with the blue line-up... If the MBR lives at the top, I go with the red partitions line-up. This is because I just remember ... if you create p1 and p2 of the exact same size, p2 will ALWAYS read large, and by over 1mb if I remeber correctly. THIS IS PROOF that p1 has the MBR code at the beginning of itself. I have been told this in many books. so it's back to where partitions build accually begins... top-down or bottoms-up! The youTUBE link looks like bottoms up to a point. I'll buy a clear drive some day and watch it for myself. That's the only way learn. I'll use camera's if I have to. back to the drawing board Back to the image you get when using Partition-Commander.. it's the RED view or is it just an imaginary view to make it human understandable? Whatever, P2 and P3 proved FASTER where ever they may be and we know for a fact that p3 got to be somewhere in the middle (based on size given) of the HDD, so the OUTER being known as the fastest, don't hold water. Maybe the BLUE chart line-up would allow for the OUTER drive to be known as the fastest if we consider that. Other than that, bottom-line: BYTES are BYTES no matter what's inside or where any group of them are located ... P3 Win! We wait an confirmation. Please hook up that spare machine. Thanks ... ... Last edited by sharris; 20th June 2011 at 08:51 AM. |
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FINALLY
I forgot to tell you guys where I stole that chart from and I did not even bother to read the darn wiki. All I wanted was a pie-chart that looks like a HDD. Now I read the wiki and it's links and it say nothing more about an HDD or LINUX ...
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blue-chart .. from bottoms-up, this would make the OUTER partition-faster. It's was all about the order partitions are created in, and the fact that the tech-people were too cool in the way they describe the OUTER section of the HDD, never including in English "from the INNER sections". Not many textbook had much to go on, so no additions comments were ever made. Kind of make since. I don't know what to believe anymore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_chart#cite_note-17 You can mark this thread solve when somebody prove it, than say-so. What a trip. |
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Hmm, that doesn't seem to be an issue with FreeBSD. |
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Hi sharris,
I always like your posts, they make me think ; ) I too have always understood the inner portion of the disk to be the fastest on a mechanical level because the arm does not have to do as much physical seeking, and it is less wear etc. Although maybe not so true anymore, I've always followed those guidelines. As rocket357 pointed out however, it's possible that things are entirely implementation-specific. Interesting......... |
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I could be wrong, but that's how I'd approach it. * - The circumference of a given "track" on a platter grows as you move further from the center. This means 2 things: 1) The relative speed the head "moves" across the platter is greater (further to "travel" as tracks get larger towards the outermost tracks), and 2) each "track" has more distance to it as you near the outermost tracks, so outer tracks can contain more sectors (i.e. more data). Faster linear speed + more data = faster data rates.
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Linux/Network-Security Engineer by Profession. OpenBSD user by choice. Last edited by rocket357; 15th June 2011 at 04:14 AM. |
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The first X sectors are located in the very first track which is, as you've already said it ("data saving begin at the first OUTER edge of the HDD"), on the periphery of the platter. And I presume it's wrong. Quote:
To preserve backward compatibility, partitions (the "BSD slice" ones) are aligned to cylinder boundaries. Most of the time, this wastes hundreds/thousands of sectors, i.e. couple of MB, between slices and at the end of the disk. Quote:
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Data is written on sectors from the outer tracks to the inner ones. Partitions/BSD slices (as well as logical or BSD partitions) are linear and also start from the outer tracks and move in to the inner ones. The data transfer rate is higher in the outer cylinders compared to the inner ones because they contain more sectors. Period. Search the Internet for "zone bit recording".
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A little level setting:
In the Good Old Days™ many decades ago now, multi-platter fixed block architecture disk drives reported their actual number of sectors and platters to the operating system. A series of sectors in a circle on a platter made up a single track, and as the heads moved together, the combined tracks from all of the platters at one head location made up a cylinder. If the OS wanted to read or write a particular sector, the heads moved with a "seek" operation, the drive selected the head of the platter containing the track of interest, and then waited for the sector to rotate around under the head. The "address" of that sector was noted two ways: by Cylinder/Head/Sector (or, if you prefer to think of it, Cylinder/Track/Sector), or by Logical Block Address.Around twenty five years ago, drive manufacturers began to have their drive electronics "lie" about the underlying architecture of cylinders and heads. They found that if they mapped the sectors the way they wanted to, they could provide their customers -- computer manufacturers who often also wrote OSes -- with adequate performance, simplified or no-management-required of spare/bad sectors, and either simplified data location tuning, or no data location tuning necessary at all. Commonly these days, drive electronics report having 255 heads (or platters), and that is an obvious fallacy. The drive manufacturers decide what to do with internal sector placement, and those decisions are proprietary and closed. Note also that with modern drives managing spare sectors without OS intervention (or knowledge), if the drive has replaced a failed sector with a spare, its LBA or CHS address will have nothing at all in common, physically, with adjacent sector addresses. Bottom Line: You cannot know the physical requirements for any particular I/O by LBA or CHS address used by the OS. The time required may or may not include one or more seek operations, there may or may be one or more delays for rotation. While the drive manufacturers may have internal maps that minimize seeking or "Rotational Position Sensing (RPS) miss" platter delays for sequential I/Os -- the OS or the admin have either little or no insight into these occurrences. Last edited by jggimi; 15th June 2011 at 03:02 PM. Reason: added a "bottom line" paragraph |
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Need a day or two:
I won't beable to reply with out checking first, but I will be reading. It don't take must to screw up: see my new setup now in progress, below. Sorry for to many words or out of place words. I'm trying not to rush things. That's how we screw up.
jggimi, that is mind blowing. Beastie you are giving me a better clue to a lot of things but I don't agree with a few details you included. I'll get back with you shortly. Give me a minute. The point of direction must come first so that we all agree. That point has been very clear. jggimi, one thing for sure no matter what they done there is always a base-line to be found. UNIX is a hell of a tool and ASM can kick the c code they use out the picture. Bottom line we have tricks tooo. UNIX and LINUX and Assembler and C are tools by themselves and that is what they use so they can't hide all from view. but if the hard-disk controller got it, were out of luck. They don't rule the controllers. The controller rules them and people like REALTECH is not cashing in i bet. I better get started. Quote:
It took a few days but bashrules post came to light for me after 12 years of wondering. That's tooo much. I bet millions of us thought the same. It should be called "bashrules" to refer to the real difference. I hope the idea is correct. If not, PROVE-IT. It's just like a old-fashion washing machine, it must spin from the center, pushing anything inside OUTWARDS. But since nothing is impossible, implementation could be a factor ... I'm not going to take no chances. I'll sticking with a one brand name of hard-drive for type computer also. So this is now a DONE DEAL too! For what I need space for, a six-pack of Seagate Barracuda 1-Terabyte, one for each AMD machine will do me just fine until QUANTUM arrive. The speed thing don't show-all. It don't mean PARTITION-1 is dead. Overall it's no faster or slower than the other two partitions when you are actually RUNNING it. Maybe one of those slices is going to feel the impact, or even certain BSD functions. I plotted to get to this for years. And now I just got the answer. So, I'm not going to jump the gun and put cart before the horse. Just like 8GB RAM with legacy give you only 7.5GB, well a HDD has legacy too and this is the effect of PARTITION-1 but who would think this. It took 12 years to get here, a few more weeks is not going to kill me. The plan was to understand why, than fix-it, trick-it or what ever it takes. But if below turn out to be what a set up should have been for computers in the first place, PARTITION-1 (MBR - OS) COMBO can keep its legacy. This is my new set-up in the working and why I waste my time: Partition-1 300 GB - FreeBSD-9.0 | 1) I'm dishing out my own legacy of from 100GB to now 300GB bigger in size to push Partition-3 beyond the OUTER MIDDLE LIMIT of the entire HDD so there be no excuse not to get the maximum speed out of the any OS and anything else to see if this "OUTER is Faster" thing is true. So far it did prove to be TRUE and this setup is just simply worth the effort and don't hurt anything. 2) This partition will also be my storage area for zillions of UFS files that I never want to lose. I will also be mounting this partition from afar to study the raw FreeBSD lay-out using PcBSD on P-3. I always wanted to view what's in a FreeBSD directory using a desktop instead of a terminal. Now I can figure better what I can remove to trim-down this system as a server, roving things that it will NEVER use. 3) I got tons of files I never use or only used once... Who said storage space should be ahead of the drive like we save to everyday, packing it with files that you may never use again but it is living in an area where the most speed for your system can be obtained. Partition-2 100 GB - PcBSD-9.0 | 1) This will be my area for testing newer versions of FreeBSD and PcBSD, mainly PcBSD's. FreeBSD has his own on Partition-1. Also it will be here just in case Windows-8 has found a way to not to allow Windows-8 to work on Virtual-Box. I'm sure Dollar Bill knows more people use the FREE Virtual-Box which can allow for may transfer of MS new OS to any non-paying parties. I will be prepared because I always pay-in-full. I need the real-deal. 2) To swap saved versions that ARCH has dd for me and compressed and saved to files. Partition-3 300 GB - PcBSD-8.2 | 1) For mastering PcBSD and to learn more about FreeBSD on P1. 1) To run Win-95 - Window-8 and the rest if I want to in Virtual-Box. 1) It will be the Ultimate Desktop, living at the Ultimate location. PERIOD In a few days I will know which way is up for SURE. But I hope to know the truth before than or some darn good guest about direction. Until than, bashrules, RULE! Extended-4 250 GB - with bootable partitions 1) To run Arch-command-line version to maintain the entire system and to keep all other operating systems honest. 2) To run Fedora-Gnome-3 giving Gnome-3 a chance to live on a real partition in my world. I don't like this kind of change but might as well get use to it. 3) A Partitions for 14 years worth of Windows Fat-32 files that will be used by all Windows from Virtual-Box on P-3 4) A partitions for ARCH to store P1, P2 and P3 partitions compressed to files. FREESPACE: 1GB Something to attach a 2, 3 or 4 Terabyte drive if I ever need more space which I will not because it would only break the bashrules OUTER-LIMITS set for this HDD. Who could ask for more? I should be back on the ball by this coming Monday. I'll post the new numbers for every partition, both ways (save and destroy). After that I'll be ready to do the rocket thing inside each partition dealing with each of it slices. ............. .............. ............... Give me a few days rocket357 so I can finish this set up. Quote:
Better yet this is a question for all of you guys... ... Last edited by sharris; 15th June 2011 at 05:46 PM. |
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I am the hole in your HDD INNER-MOST: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TRACK 1 - claiming 300GB of sectors inside 3 TRACKS MBR + PRIMARY 1 ---- i am the most inner with MBR in the FIRST-SECTOR! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TRACK 4 - claiming 100GB of sectors inside 1 TRACKS I am- PRIMARY 2 ---- i am the one track most outer ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TRACK 5 - claiming 300GB of sectors inside 3 TRACKS I am- PRIMARY 3 ---- i am the the three tracks most outer ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TRACK 8 - claiming 200GB of sectors inside 2 TRACKS I am-EXTENDED 4 ---- i am the the most outer EVER --- so where is the MBR? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ OUTER-MOST If MBR was on the most outer part of the HDD than PRIMARY 1 would be the most outer partition because they are connected than-2 than-3 tha-4 would be the most inner being slowers based on information given. A picture in the text book that i mentioned shows a cd with a “single track spirals to edge of disc”. ... This thing starts at the MOST INNER section of the disc and spiral out to the outer edge of the disk. This is the only indication that can help to visualize anything. There is nothing that show and tell I seen yet. This tell me that the first sector of a HDD could be and should be at the MOST INNER section of the HDD. The FIRST-SECTOR: You make a pie at the MOST INNER section. You make pizza at MOST INNER section, and spread-out. Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record Ok, when partitioning we claim a certain amount of tracks for it’s data to use any group of it's sectors. For those who claim that it is not this true ... lets look at it the SECTOR way. We already know that once we start filling any partition with data it could be sent to any group of sector as long as it stay within the the real number of tracks it take to mean given size for each partitons. Code:
I am the hole in your HDD and these are sectors below me ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^...MBR...^ P2 ^ P3 ^ P4 ^ ^ Well I can't do much, MBR on my back ^....P1...^ P2 ^ P3 ^ P4 ^ ^ Darn there four of us in one cyl. ^....P1...^ P2 ^ P3 ^ P4 ^ ^ Yes this makes no since. ^....P1...^ P2 ^ P3 ^ P4 ^ ^ Me three but I am the most outer .. all 4 of us |
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