how to boost up harddisk performance?

[Battousai1]

Hi I just bought a 5400 RPM 10 gig maxtor harddrive, and already checked the DMA setting on the system menu, is there any other ways left to improve performance? or any software that will let you squeeze all the power on the harddrive?

 

[Killbat]

Ask another forum?

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=50&threadid=633932

 

[StandardCell]

As off-topic as this may or may not be, I'll mention a few things that might be useful for increasing performance.

1. Make sure the hard drive is the master on its channel.
2. Make sure you have the bus mastering IDE drivers installed for your particular motherboard. You can usually get them from the manufacturer.
3. If you have any other high-bandwidth devices like high-speed CD-ROMs on the same cable, try to put them on the other IDE cable/channel or avoid using them during hard drive accesses if possible.
4. In the BIOS, make sure you have the I/O mode set to the highest mode supported by the drive. I *think* this is an UDMA/33 drive, so choose that in the BIOS.
5. Make sure you are not IRQ sharing your IDE controller with any other devices. Storage controllers should be on their own IRQ.
6. If it's a not an empty drive, defrag it.
7. In Windows, make sure your computer is set to the primary role of "Network Server" even if you are using it by yourself.
8. Make sure that you don't have any advanced options disabled.

Most of these are accessible by right clicking on My Computer and clicking on Properties. Have fun.

 

[Battousai1]

thnx would you explain these selected tips you gave me cause i dont understand some of them"

1. Make sure the hard drive is the master on its channel.

4. In the BIOS, make sure you have the I/O mode set to the highest mode supported by the drive. I *think* this is an UDMA/33 drive, so choose that in the BIOS.

5. Make sure you are not IRQ sharing your IDE controller with any other devices. Storage controllers should be on their own IRQ.


thats the only things I cant understand thnx!

 

[StandardCell]

<< thnx would you explain these selected tips you gave me cause i dont understand some of them"

1. Make sure the hard drive is the master on its channel.
>>



IDE allows two devices to be used on one cable. In order to distinguish between the devices, they call one the Master and one the Slave on the controller. So devices have a jumper to select between Master and Slave (and cable select, where the drive closest to the controller on the cable is automatically selected as master). If your hard drive is on the controller, with or without another device, make sure it is jumpered to "Master" and the other device, if any, to "Slave" since the master device is supposed to be of higher performance.



<<
4. In the BIOS, make sure you have the I/O mode set to the highest mode supported by the drive. I *think* this is an UDMA/33 drive, so choose that in the BIOS.
>>



In your BIOS, you can specify the transfer speed on the IDE cable. There are PIO modes 1 through 4 (2, 4, 8, and 16 MB/s) and then UDMA modes (33, 66, and 100MB/s). If your device is set to a low transfer rate because it is set to PIO Mode 3, you won't get the maximum performance out of it. It should be in your BIOS setup somewhere.



<<
5. Make sure you are not IRQ sharing your IDE controller with any other devices. Storage controllers should be on their own IRQ.

thats the only things I cant understand thnx! >>



On your computer, different hardware devices can share the same IRQ. It is managed by the computer's hardware, and isn't usually a big deal for low-speed devices. HOWEVER, if you share an IRQ between your IDE controller and, say, your video card, since they're both demanding high bandwidth devices, you may get degraded performance on both your video card and your IDE controller (which, in turn, slows down hard drive reads and writes). By making sure that your IDE controllers are not sharing IRQs with other devices, you are removing any performance impediment that would be imposed if you were. You can check this by going to Control Panel -> System or right clicking on "My Computer" and clicking on "Properties" and then clicking the "Device Manager" tab. Usually, the Primary and Secondary IDE channels on your computer (with a Master and Slave devices on each controller making a total of FOUR possible IDE devices) are on IRQ14 and IRQ15, respectively. Whatever IRQ they are on, make sure no other devices are, and if they are, try to steer them away by altering their configuration manually.

You're welcome.

 

[spazntwich1]

I hate supporting off topic threads, but StandardCell, I'm very interested in hearing what setting your computer as a network server does.

I've always just left my settngs in the standard setting, there.

 

[AcidzT]

<< I hate supporting off topic threads, but StandardCell, I'm very interested in hearing what setting your computer as a network server does.

I've always just left my settngs in the standard setting, there. >>



if i rember correctly setting your computer as a network server gives more system catch or somthing like that, i run mine as netowrk server and havent ever had a prob so its jsut somthing to do that helps alittle