[dba-VB] Performance in disc partitions

I am about to partition a new disc.  One partition will be very active in
terms of reads and writes, another almost dormant.

Is there any advantage in performance terms in having the active partition
as the 'first' one on the disc?  Or the last one?

It's a long time since I was involved in disc layout at a low level, and I'm
wondering whether 'cylinders' these days are still all the same size, with
the data near the edge of the platter just more spread out than that near
the spindle - or not?

TIA
John