[SOLVED] Copy from fast area of a hard drive to the slow area (inner area) of a drive?

[Kletoss]

If one copies data from a full external 8 TB or 5 TB hard drive to an empty 8 TB hard drive how could one make sure that the data of the slow area (inner area) of a drive is not copied to the fast area (outer area) of the other drive but from the fast area to the fast area? So from fast to slow or vice versa would mean to get a slow speed instaed copying from fast to fast area with a faster speed. At least for half of the data or so.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I think you are confused about how hard drives work and there’s nothing you can do to control where things get copied

 

[Ralston18]

Your question leads into some rather technical and lengthy discussions.

For example:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/H...tes_are_faster_than_other_sectors_of_the_disk

Article is 5+ years old but overall still relevant.

What is your application? Likely to be some trade-offs one way or another.

 

[USAFRet]

An offshoot of this was known as shortstroking.
Creating a partition on only the outer tracks, and only using that.
https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/short-stroking

I say "was", because it doesn't really matter with todays drives.
Larger cache, newer drive firmware, and the OS mostly doing what it wants.

And when you copy data from one drive to another, the physical location (tracks/sectors/cylinders) on the source has nothing to do with the physical location on the target. The target fills up as needed.


If you're concerned about 'speed', why are you still using spinning drives?

 

[Kletoss]

I think you are confused about how hard drives work

Why do you think so?

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_can_we_write_a_file_to_a_disk_where_the_read_and_writes_are_faster_than_other_sectors_of_the_disk

Many thanks for the link, very complicated.

What is your application?

Sorry, what application is meant? I just want to copy data now to an empty USB 3 drive, but the speed is about 25 MB/s all the time although the files should be big enough (about 50 MB per file) to be copied faster.

 

[USAFRet]

Sorry, what application is meant? I just want to copy data now to an empty USB 3 drive, but the speed is about 25 MB/s all the time although the files should be big enough (about 50 MB per file) to be copied faster.

Copying to a USB connected drive?
The USB interface has FAR more impact than the physical location on the drive and its rotational speed.

 

[Kletoss]

If you're concerned about 'speed', why are you still using spinning drives?

Well, not that concerned but 25 MB/s is very slow. And SSDs seem to be more expensive respectively do not have that much storage, I guess. Don't know what else would be usable without causing much cost.

Copying to a USB connected drive?

Yes, data from a full external 5 TB hard drive to an empty external 8 TB hard drive, both USB 3. WD Elements 5 TB to SEAGATE Backup Plus HUB, 8 TB HDD.

The USB interface has FAR more impact than the physical location on the drive and its rotational speed.

Although such USB interface is designed to get a speed of up to 130 MB/s, I assume, so a usable speed for USB 3 drives. Usually big files are transferred with about 90, 110 MB/s here. Small files much slower.

 

[popatim]

You can only transfer as fast as the slowest link in the chain. Known speedy UB3 drive>USB3 cables>known speedy USB3 Ports and then back out thru an identical stream are all required. Throw in a simply usb2 cable on either end and you've dropped your speed to usb2.

Also some motherboards USB3 ports cannot achieve true USB3 speeds and many cannot do it from more then 1 port at a time because they use an internal hub which splits the 1 real usb3 connection they have into several ports.

 

[Kletoss]

You can only transfer as fast as the slowest link in the chain. Known speedy UB3 drive>USB3 cables>known speedy USB3 Ports and then back out thru an identical stream are all required. Throw in a simply usb2 cable on either end and you've dropped your speed to usb2.

I am not quite sure. The drives, cables here are USB 3 and they can allow a speed here about 130 MB/s, even the Noteboo, Motherboard can. But yesterday the speed was at 25 MB/s most of the time and then 60, 70 MB/s, now it is at 60 to 120. So why does the die run so slow yesterday?