Short Stroking Opinion

[JoshOohAh]

I was thinking of Short Stroking my 2 1TBs in Raid0 because there is no way I will ever use that entire amount and I might as well benefit from the unused space. Not sure if this is how I would accurately figure out the capacity to put it at, but I ran a HD Tach sequential read speed and it generated this chart for a "quick bench" (8mb zones)


Now based off this graph would shorting it to 700GBs seem to make sense? That's where it appears to be at its peak and that is probably the most I'll ever use.

However the "Long bench" (32mb zones) shows this chart



There is that huge dip right around the 725GB range. But based on this 650GB looks ideal for speed/capacity

I would assume the long bench would be the more accurate one but I don't want to assume without getting some other opinions. What Capacity should I go for? Currently I am using 350 GBs so I do have a lot of leeway here.

Thanks for any input

[MpG]

You'll notice it does absolutely nothing for your access times. Better to just use a defrag utility that can move OS and common files to the outer edge of the platters. Same effect, less hassle.

[JoshOohAh]

Originally Posted by MpG

You'll notice it does absolutely nothing for your access times. Better to just use a defrag utility that can move OS and common files to the outer edge of the platters. Same effect, less hassle.

Which program do you use for that!!!!!!! Windows defrag obviously does not have that option

[CMetaphor]

Short stroking give the most noticable boost in performance then more you short stroke.

I'll explain: If you short stroke to 50% capacity, you will get a slight performance boost because the heads only have to move half as much. But if you short stroke to 10% capacity then the head only had to move one tenth that same amount. The less movements of the heads = the better performance.

Its up to you to decide the balance between how much capacity you need and how little you want the head to move.

[JoshOohAh]

Originally Posted by CMetaphor

Short stroking give the most noticable boost in performance then more you short stroke.

I'll explain: If you short stroke to 50% capacity, you will get a slight performance boost because the heads only have to move half as much. But if you short stroke to 10% capacity then the head only had to move one tenth that same amount. The less movements of the heads = the better performance.

Its up to you to decide the balance between how much capacity you need and how little you want the head to move.

But aren't there 'sweet spots' for the drives?

[CMetaphor]

Originally Posted by JoshOohAh

But aren't there 'sweet spots' for the drives?

That varies from drive to drive. But IMO HDD Tach is not the best tool to use at all.

Try using ATTO to bench the raid now, then short stroke to wherever and bench again. Rinse and repeat. You'll find your relative performance "peak" when short stroking without giving up all your space by going straight to a 10% short stroke.

Edit:
The big dips you're seeing in the first test is probably HDD tach averaging out the sudden stop in speed when switching platters (a 1 tb has 4 platters, so 3 dips).

[MpG]

Originally Posted by JoshOohAh

Which program do you use for that!!!!!!! Windows defrag obviously does not have that option

Auslogics defrag has an optimize option for defragging, and it's free.

[JoshOohAh]

Originally Posted by CMetaphor

That varies from drive to drive. But IMO HDD Tach is not the best tool to use at all.

Try using ATTO to bench the raid now, then short stroke to wherever and bench again. Rinse and repeat. You'll find your relative performance "peak" when short stroking without giving up all your space by going straight to a 10% short stroke.

Now to think what to do with my 150GBs of Steam games... I mean I didn't plan on doing this for a while because if I get an SSD as a boot drive / major programs then I would need to reinstall everything again. I guess 10% is just the quickest solution.

Anyways if I do start trying to figure out the peak would I just keep comparing this charts as I short stroke?

Originally Posted by MpG

Auslogics defrag has an optimize option for defragging, and it's free.

Beautiful I'll give it a shot. Thanks :D

[CMetaphor]

Originally Posted by JoshOohAh

Anyways if I do start trying to figure out the peak would I just keep comparing this charts as I short stroke?

Ayup. But you already have some decent numbers there. About 180mbps write and 200 read, not bad.

[JoshOohAh]

Originally Posted by CMetaphor

Ayup. But you already have some decent numbers there. About 180mbps write and 200 read, not bad.

Sounds like a party and a good way to kill a weekend :P. I'll save that project for a boring day. And yea the speeds are good but when I used to have these drives short stroked I remember 22x mbps writes and 250+ reads.