External HD vs. Music Partition

[Digitrack]

Hi guys,

i've been wondering how you guys think about it,

does it make much difference for your pc performance if you keep all your music on a seperate partition or on a external hard disk?

I kept it some time on a harddisk (portable so usb powered) but i constantly had issues with it, now i have it on a partition and all problems are solved.

But would it cause latency?

Gorik/Digitrack

[Patch]

It's pretty common to have a data partition, and an OS partition. Don't know what effect it will have on performance, though.

[lethal_pizzle]

Mine is all on the same partition. Don't think it really makes any difference if the data is on the same physical disk.

[rhombus_77]

It is usually a good idea to separate data and the OS/programs onto different physical and/or logical volumes.

1) installing new/fresh OS's is easier.
2) reduces the risk of total failure. Caveat: using two physical drives is better than two logical drives
3) Anecdotal evidence points to faster performance due to an additional drive for virtual memory and paging.

I personally believe it is good practice to separate the two. My $0.02

[Digitrack]

Thanks for the replies!

I'll keep it in mind, probably I'll keep everything on my partition as long as everything goes as it should. From the moment that I notice latency problems, it's time to buy a new external HD I guess.

[Digitrack]

An additional question,

does anybody has experience with Usb sticks or SD cards to store your music?
Is it as fast as a harddisk?

[rhombus_77]

USB 2.0 can transfer data at speeds up to 120 MB/s
I believe SD cards can transfer at speeds at around 90 MB/s
Hard Disks (SATA II) can reach speeds up to 300 MB/s