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FizzyWidget
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:51 pm    Post subject: Extended partitions Reply with quote

Does it have any performance impact if gentoo is installed to an extended or logical drive?

I am thinking of dual booting main pc as win7/gentoo, mainly for games and seeing as Windows 7 requires 2 partitions that only leaves 2 primary partitions avliable, so I will have to use extended partitions for some of the folders

Probably a silly question but I thought I would ask it and get all the information before I go messing about :)
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dark Foo,

File system mounting may take a few microseconds longer as the kernel has to traverse the linked list that describes logical partitions.
After the filesystem is mounted, it makes no difference at all.

If your version of Windows supports GPT, you can use GPT and have 255 primary partitions.
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doom555
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From what I know, you will not have any slowdown using extended partitions ... In fact, the extended partitions exist because of the limitations of the master boot record (where you can define only 4 partitions). An extended partition include inside the logical partitions and defines their characteristics.
Logically, I would think that the only thing that could be slowed down is reading the partition definition, since it is read before the MBR that refers to the extended partition which defines the characteristics of the logical partition.

Instead, it could affect the speed, the position of the disk where the partition is located, it is said that the data in the most interior are read and written faster!!!
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

doom555,

Hard drives are 'zoned'. They are divided into a number of areas where the physical sectors per track varies.
There are more sectors per track near the edge then there are near the spindle. The difference is about 2:1.
Therefore, the sequential read speed at the outside of the platter is about twice that near the spindle.
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cwr
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 12:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've always installed Linux on extended partitions - the primaries are taken
up by Windows, Windows Recovery, and a FAT partitition for data transfer.
I've never had any problems; on large drives I use the last extended
partition for a bunch of LVN containers.

Will
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srs5694
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 3:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
File system mounting may take a few microseconds longer as the kernel has to traverse the linked list that describes logical partitions.


I'm not positive, but I think that the kernel notes the start and stop points of the partitions when it boots, rather than when the partitions are accessed. If that's the case, you wouldn't see any difference at mount time, although there'd be a tiny (unnoticeable) effect on boot times. As you said, there should be no effect once the partitions are mounted.

Quote:
If your version of Windows supports GPT, you can use GPT and have 255 primary partitions.


First, Windows ties its boot style to the disk partition table type: Windows boots BIOS-based computers only from MBR disks, and it boots EFI-based computers only from GPT disks. Thus, changing to GPT would require changing the boot mode from BIOS to EFI. This is possible, but it's tedious and risky, and it requires either an EFI-based computer or use of the awkward DUET boot loader software. Thus, it's a change I don't recommend unless there's a significant need for it.

Second, the default size for a GPT is 128 entries. This can be raised (or lowered, although that violates the GPT spec) to just about any value you like, but I have yet to hear of anybody who actually needs more than 128 partitions.
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

srs5694,

Thank you for your corrections. I have not suffered from Windows for 10 years, apart from on my company provided laptop, that I'm not allowed to touch.
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