Partition Questions

Saw this un-answered question in the forum, which I'd also like to know the answer to.

On my system I have Win2K on a 2gig FAT16 partition, placed in the middle of my drive.

I read somewhere that:

* FAT16 was slightly faster than FAT32 and NTFS.

* having the OS in the center of your drive reduces the time it
takes for the HD head to read, as it will mainly start from the
middle of your drive.

Is the above true in any sense?
If not I won't need that Win98 partition at the beginning of my drive to boot 2K from the center of my drive.

Click to expand...

I have never heard that before but in theory it makes sence. Since all your window files would be in the middle of your programs.

if you find out post your results, it sounds interesting

That theory I heard about having the OS centered in the middle of a drive doesn't look to be such a great idea after all. I read a full guide on swap files for all win OSs, and in that it tells you that the front of your drive, being the first partition C:, is the fastest part of your drive. Because more data can be read at the outer tracks that on the inner tracks, which is near the end of the drive. So having your OS in the center may increase speed, but at the cost of speed you already had. My opinion leave it at the very front.

But this still didn't answer my question on which file system is faster. But since I heard a lot about NTFS being a stable file system, thats what I'm using for now, seems to run pretty fast with the above.