Quote:
Is it there for a specific reason, perhaps because that's the best average position so the head doesn't have to travel as far to reach it?


Yep. If you assume that the filesystem is going to be hitting the MFT more than any other file, it makes sense to put it in the middle. Then, at worst, the heads only need to move half of their total sweep to get to it.

This can be a big performance win.

Of course, if you're using LBA (or fake geometry), who knows where the blocks have actually been mapped to?
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-- roger