Moving files a the beginning of the Hard Drive

[Mudassar]

Anyone know if its possible to move some files a the beginning of the Hard Drive so it can go faster?

I know windows try’s to do this when the file is most frequently used, but I would like to do this manually.
-----------------
MK

Hope this helps!

 

[edfair]

You can copy files from directory to directory, delete the original files, fill the original file space with junk stuff , then copy files back where they will move higher. then delete the junk. This will free up stuff at the beginning of the disk.
This will do it temporarily, but as stuff gets shuffled on and off, particularly with windows, the low area will get constricted again.
Better to partition the drive and put the faster stuff on its own partition. Or if you really want to jazz it up, put the stuff that needs to be fast on a ram disk. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Mudassar]

Thanks edfair... Just wanted to know, whats a RAM disk? Never heard of that. Know any websites of companies that would sell them? -----------------
MK

Hope this helps!

 

[Mudassar]

by the way, I am using Windows 2000. Its quite good at reassembling files. Know any feature in that OS which would assemble files? -----------------
MK

Hope this helps!

 

[edfair]

Ram disk is a software solution that creates a disk emulator out of memory.
There are also mass storage devices that are built with ram, but the last time I checked they were very expensive. Try a google search for it. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[cdogg]

Not that I think it's an amazing piece of software %-) but Norton's Speed Disk software gives you the ability to customize a defrag, placing files you specify at the beginning, middle, or end of the partition.

 

[hotfusion]

My view and limited experience suggest that with modern fast drives the difference is almost unnoticeable. I suggest you save your money and go the multiple partition route. Setting up a swap on a separate partition to the OS would probably reduce the gradual slow-up due to fragmentation. My suggestions are what I would try myself. If incorrect, I welcome corrections to my rather limited knowledge. Andy.

 

[Mudassar]

Thanks edfair, cdogg, and hotfusion. I have a 40gb HD which is about a year old now. I realized that paritioning would be the best way.

Speed Disk would work ofcourse (thanks cdogg), but it would mean I would need to spare my computer some time every week or so working on the files.

-----------------
MK

Hope this helps!

 

[Kjonnnn]

With today's drives... we're only talking about milliseconds of speed difference from front to back anyway right?

 

[cdogg]

kjonnnn,

That's right when talking about sequential reads. However, milliseconds can turn into seconds when a hard drive is forced to skip back and forth from front to back several times to read a large file or files.

Even though access times are getting shorter with newer drives, you can still significantly speed up boot times and application execution times by placing files towards the beginning of the drive. In this area, read times are much faster than at the end of the drive. Just to prove that it's noticibly different, Windows XP uses this method to speed boot times.

Example: Look at the boot time difference between Win2K and WinXP.