RE: [COMP] Fw:

I just wanted to add to my measurement when I copied a file from one drive
to another:

This process involves reading and writing.  The CPU cannot do both at the
same time.  Since I transferred a 20MB file from one drive to another and it
took 10 seconds, I said the transfer rate was 2MB/sec.  But, this involved
reading from one drive and writing to another.  Thus it for every MB is read
it wrote a MB.  Therefore, the actual transfer rate was 4MB/sec exactly what
the test on Easy CD Creator gave me.

Mike

 -----Original Message-----
From:   weez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:weez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]  On Behalf Of
Michael V. Franklin
Sent:   Friday, February 25, 2000 1:37 PM
To:     computers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:        RE: [COMP] Fw:

Keep in mind that the speed of your hard drive depends on many different
factors.  It is controlled by the CPU, hence if there are a lot of processes
running, the CPU has to divide its time between the hard drive and the other
processes.  RAM also plays a part in this process because of the fact that
it may have to switch between the swap file (a file that your hard drive
uses to make up for RAM shortage) and the file it is moving or copying.  You
will never achieve the rate that is advertised, because that measurement is
made under ideal circumstances.

The hard drive also has a small cache.  This is an area of memory used to
store frequently or recently accessed data so that it doesn't have to
actually read from the hard drive itself.  The cache is much quicker than a
disk because it uses digital electronics rather than moving parts.  Because
of this cache, the reading and writing of large files vs small files is very
different.

Don't rely on wintune to test your performance.  Try testing it yourself.
Get a very large file on your hard drive, and copy it (Don't move it) to
another place on your hard drive and see how long it takes.  This is the
best way to test the performance of your hard drive.

Easy CD Creator from Adaptec has a test for hard drives built in to its
functionality.  I have found that this is a the most accurate measurement
for testing the performance of your disks.  It actually gets very close to
the number achieved with the copying method discussed earlier.

Just so you know, I have done a test for you on my own computer to give you
some numbers to compare with.  I have two hard drives, both Western Digital,
one using DMA and the other UDMA.  Here are the results:

Copying from one drive to another:
2MB/sec

Easy CD Creator results:
Small files - approx 2MB/s
Large files - approx 4MB/s

I have a 350 MHz processor with 128MB of RAM.  So 1.5MB/sec really isn't all
that bad.  You'll never get the number advertised, that number is measured
under ideal and unrealistic conditions.  Hope this helps.

Can someone do a similar test under Linux and post the results?  My Linux
computer is very slow and wouldn't give me a realistic measurement.  I'm
rather curious.

Mike

 -----Original Message-----
From:   weez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:weez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent:   Friday, February 25, 2000 9:47 AM
To:     computers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:        Re: [COMP] Fw:

> John,  I see nothing in the Bios pertaining to 32 bit access. the Bios is
> Award 4.51pg; the mo/bo is Epox mvp3c.
> There is nothing in Device Manager flagged running in "compatability mode"
> Laurence

With the Device manager- make sure you'r on the Performance tab- which is
actually separate from the device manager.  It's the page that'll tell you
about your system resources.

Once we've settled this, you can try upgrading your motherboard/chipset
drivers from the manufacturer.  If there's nothing in BIOS though, and
everything else seems right, then you're probably going as fast as Windows
is going to let you-- keep in mind that it isn't known for
speed/performance.

Does anyone else have any other ideas?


John



========================================
Avenir Web's Computers Mailing List

List Modes, Subscription, and General Info:
Go to http://avenir.dhs.org/mailing.html
List Archives: http://avenir.dhs.org/archives/
Administrative Contact: webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Get computer help: http://avenir.dhs.org
========================================

========================================
Avenir Web's Computers Mailing List

List Modes, Subscription, and General Info:
Go to http://avenir.dhs.org/mailing.html
List Archives: http://avenir.dhs.org/archives/
Administrative Contact: weez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Get computer help: http://avenir.dhs.org
========================================

========================================
Avenir Web's Computers Mailing List

List Modes, Subscription, and General Info:
Go to http://avenir.dhs.org/mailing.html
List Archives: http://avenir.dhs.org/archives/
Administrative Contact: weez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Get computer help: http://avenir.dhs.org
========================================

Other related posts: