always create the locations that need frequent I/O /home, swap on the outer tracks ?

annalissa:-

The general rule is that you should always create the locations that need frequent I/O -/home, swap on the outer tracks , the easiest way to achieve this is to create these partitions first when partitioning your hard disk ?

Reason all modern H.D.D's use a concept called ZCAV(zonal constant angular velocity). this takes advantage of the fact that more linear space is available on the outer tracks of the disk platter rather than on the inside tracks. now since the disk spins at a constant rate , which is also known as CAV (constant angular velocity) the read/write I/O speed will be greater at the outer tracks as compared to the inner tracks

oldfred:-

Now if you have lots of RAM (over 2GB) you may never use swap except for hibernation or extreme cases of every program running or video editing. Will you be able to type faster or download from INTERNET faster? Those are the main bottlenecks.

Now if you have a server with large databases or millions of users hitting it, like google does, then fine tuning to that level may make a difference. Perhaps if you spend a lot of time compiling programs it may make a difference, but if it is that important then you should have SSD drive.


Matt giver:-

It is unlikely you will notice any improvement. 5400 is 90/second. Not much time no matter how you look at it.

But unless you are a sysadm with lots of users calling their files common files many times an hour, think of an office of insurance adjusters, your largest files are in /usr. As folks are always interested in bragging rights on availability (and even a newbie can get 0.999 availability) the boot directory is going to be first and /usr second on a normal install.

If you are having response time problems, increase RAM.

FWIW, this was a sort of geeky think to do on Windows in the 90s. I did it.Never saw a difference.


Aragorn

There are also a few other considerations, i.e. if your system has a lot of RAM, then you will
most likely not be using swap at all, or only under very rare circumstances.

Next to that, "/usr" is a filesystem which is primarily read-only, so it will under normal circumstances not be written to - I myself always have "/boot", "/usr" and "/opt" mounted read-only during normal operation - but just because it's not being written to does not mean
it's not being read.

"/usr" is where the bulk of the software is installed - technically: everything that is required for multi-user operation.

"/opt" is similar, except that it's for optional software, i.e. software which does not integrate well with the "/usr" hierarchy and may have been added on later.

"/usr/local" shares a similar purpose as "/opt" but is intended for software which was installed from sources by the sysadmin, as opposed to software in binary form supplied via the distribution-specific package manager.

So, all things considered, I would take the advice from that article with a grain of salt. Yes, it is good advice, but there are more things to consider


The Natural philosopher:-

Correct, but almost totally irrelevant.

since if disk I/O speeds are a problem, you have a real problem anyway.

And I would challenge that /home needs the fastest access. in terms of program loading /usr is far more relevant.

If /swap is being used extensively, you have a serious memory problem as well.

An /tmp is far more likely to be a frequent candidate. And /var.

So its a bit of irrelevant truth, a few bad or at least questionable assumptions all cobbled together by someone with nothing better to do to make a 'rule' that is at best worthless, and at worst, highly misleading. And which totally ignores disc caching.