HD controller

[Guest]

I read this month that partitioning a hard drive meant that the HD had
to work hard moving around the disk and that it wore out sooner. I
thought that if this was true a second drive kept soley for data was
the answer but then I thought what if this transfers the hard work to
the HD controller that I think is on the motherboard. Would this make
the entire motherboard fail and with it the XP O/S?

Colin

 

[Codswallop]

I read this month that partitioning a hard drive meant that the HD had
to work hard moving around the disk and that it wore out sooner. I
thought that if this was true a second drive kept soley for data was
the answer but then I thought what if this transfers the hard work to
the HD controller that I think is on the motherboard. Would this make
the entire motherboard fail and with it the XP O/S?

Colin

If partitioning a hard drive caused it to wear out sooner the drive must
have been on its last legs anyway. It is unusual for the hard drive
controller to fail.

 

[Pop`]

I read this month that partitioning a hard drive meant that the HD had
to work hard moving around the disk and that it wore out sooner. I

No, it won't wear out any sooner, or not perceptibly so, anyway.
What you read probably referred to the extra few milliseconds or
microseconds required for the drive head to get from one lodation to
another. Defragging will usually "fix" that problem. There CAN be some
time added for some, not all, operations, but they are normally very, very
tiny and not noticeable.

thought that if this was true a second drive kept soley for data was
the answer but then I thought what if this transfers the hard work to
the HD controller that I think is on the motherboard.

Don't worry about it. Whether the work is occurring on one or two of more
hard drives is going to result in almost the same identical amount of work
for the controller.
There ARE some very valid reasons to have a second physical hard drive,
or to add partitions to only one hard drive. There is also, as you've
found, a lot of either misinformation or easily misread information around.
One reason is for backing up: You can keep all of your data separated
from the operatins sytem, making it faster and easier to back up your data.

Would this make

the entire motherboard fail and with it the XP O/S?

Definitely not.

HTH
Pop`

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I read this month that partitioning a hard drive meant that the HD had
to work hard moving around the disk and that it wore out sooner.

No, that's not true. If there's any difference at all, it's so small as to
be unnoticeable.

I
thought that if this was true a second drive kept soley for data was
the answer but then I thought what if this transfers the hard work to
the HD controller that I think is on the motherboard. Would this make
the entire motherboard fail and with it the XP O/S?

No. What happens on the motherboard is electronic, not mechanical.
Mechanical devices involve friction, and friction is what makes mechanical
devices eventually fail. There's nothing mechanical on the motherboard, no
friction, and therefore no possible "wearing out" in this sense.