When writing a large (10GB) file to an HDD, I'm considering two approaches for writing the data:
- Pre-allocate: Create a 10GB file upfront and then write data sequentially (e.g., using fallocate on Linux or similar methods on other OS).
- Append: Start with an empty file and append data until 10GB. I'm curious about the performance differences and if inode management plays a significant role, especially considering the potential for contiguous space allocation with pre-allocation versus repeated metadata updates with appending.
Are there performance best practices for large file writes to HDDs, and do different OS/file systems behave differently in this regard? Any insights or experiences are appreciated.
