Question about ATA/100

[leapingfrog0]

I'm a little confused on ATA/100 interfaces. With this interface data can go at 100MB/sec, right? So why is it when I copy a 700MB file to anothe part of my hard drive it doesn't take 7 seconds to copy it over?

Can someone please explain this to me? I'm confused.

Thanks.

 

[ddeder]

Don't quote me on this, but when copying data from one part of the hard drive to another, I believe the data needs to be copied to RAM first. 100MBps is the speed data is transferred to RAM. Assuming the same speed to copy data from RAM to the hard drive, your transfer would take about 14 seconds...

This is of couse assuming that you are using an 80 pin cable.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong...

 

[Nothinman]

100MB/s is the peak burst rate, you'll almost never get that, especially sustained.

Also if you're copying from one partition to another on the same hard disk you cut the speed in half because you seek in the first file, read a chunk, seek to the new file, write a chunk then start over, so you make the drive do twice as much work.

Basically it's marketing.

It is possible there is a problem, how long did it take to copy 700M and was it on the same disk or between two seperate ones?

 

[rbV5]

Its a standard. It has to Read and write as well. My ATA100 maxtor will peak burst at maybe 80 MB/sec, but average say 35 MB/sec, sustain perhaps 25 MB/sec and dip to perhaps 17 MB/sec on the far inside of the platter. Where it physically writes the data has a large effect on speed, empty HD, outside tracks very fast. Full HD, inside tracks much slower.

update: My hardrive is somewhat full, 725MB video file transfer appx 32 seconds.