Different performance on partitions (same HD, partitioned on gparted).

[AlanQ]

Hello there.
I have 5 partitions in my HD:

1 - system-reserved (100MB)
2 - Windows 7 HP (300GB) NTFS
3 - Company's Distro (90GB) Ext4
4 - [EXTENDED]
+ 4.1 - Backups (100GB) NTFS
+ 4.2 - Swap Area (10GB)

I've created them using gparted.

I've ran the Crystal Disk Mark on both the 2 and 4.1 partitions and the performance is considerably slower (almost exactly the half on the latter one).

Is this a partitioning problem? Is it possible to fix it without having to format the HD? I know the performance may vary depending on the physical position on disk, but I doubt this amount of variation is normal.

Thanks.

 

[GeneO]

Disks run at a constant rotational speed, but the outside part of each platter has more sectors in a track (the ring around the platter) than the inner part because there is more space there. It follows that you will get a higher data rate on the outside of the platter than the inside.

Windows allocates sapce from the outside of the platter inwards. So the first partition will be faster than the second which will be faster than the third, etc.

You can use HDtune to see this. I have attached an HDtune plot. From left to right it moves from the outter part of the platters to the inner - you can see the data rate drop.