- Sep 5, 2003
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My computer became awfully slow lately and I decided to do a simple test:
Setup:
P4 2.6 "C" HT @ 3.06ghz
2x256 PC3500 Geil UP @ 2-6-2-2
Abit IS7 @ Turbo
WD 80GB 8mb cache 7200 rpm (HDD 1)
Samsung 8.4GB 5400 rpm (HDD 2)
Performance prior to reformatting
Synthetic:
The hard drive was defragmented prior to testing.
I had 45 gb of data stored on my large hard drive. Before reformatting PCMark2002 gave HDD1 a miserable score of 416 . Sisoftware Sandra gave File System Benchmark = 28MB/sec.
Real-world:
Office 2003 archived using WinRAR 3.40 = Total size 583MB
Task 1: Extract Office 2003 from HDD2 onto the Desktop of the Primary HDD1
Time taken: 4 min : 3 seconds
Performance after to reformatting
Synthetic:
The hard drive was not deframnted prior to testing.
I now have 13.3gb of data stored on HDD1. After reformatting PCMark2002 gave HDD1 a score of 1228 (195% improvement). Sisoftware Sandra gave File System Benchmark = 42MB/sec.
Real-world:
Task 1: Extract Office 2003 from HDD2 onto the Desktop of the Primary HDD1
Time taken: 1 min : 52 seconds
Task 2: Copy Office 2003 from HDD2 to the Desktop of the Primary HDD1, then extract it directly onto the desktop from HDD1 itself
a) Copying = 43 seconds
b) Extraction = 1min: 31 seconds
Total time = 2 min:14 seconds
Both times, the performance was better after reformat. The performance of the "filled" (45gb out of 80gb) hard drive was always low regardless of the amount of times it was defragmented and became lower over time the more files were being stored on it.
Thoughts:
Going raid 0 might improve performance but alone wont prevent "clogging" problems associated with the OS (which was poorly designed). Both hard drives will start to become slow over time as the operating system flaws will be there. And no amount of hard drive defragmentation is going to solve the issue of having more and more files clogging up.
So best solution would be to get 1 fast HDD (ie. Raptor) and have Operating system on it and only main programs; games and all other material should be stored on the additional hard drives. (80gb, 100, 120, etc.) That way your system will be always fast and you can refromat without fear of losing data.
From my testing, I am assuming that the most optimal solution would probably involve something like 74 gig raptors in raid 0 for the OS AND separate hard drive(s) for storing data (can have in raid 0 as well). That way you get the benefit of speed for the operating system and ability to reformat at will anytime without losing major data.
Simply having 2 hard drives in raid 0 isnt going to solve the never-ending Operating system slowdown as the hard drives fill up. Of course only 1 simple test is being done here. But if something as common as extraction gets affected, the more intensive HDD tasks will most likely benefit more from a separate clean OS setup.
Did anyone else have similar experience?
Setup:
P4 2.6 "C" HT @ 3.06ghz
2x256 PC3500 Geil UP @ 2-6-2-2
Abit IS7 @ Turbo
WD 80GB 8mb cache 7200 rpm (HDD 1)
Samsung 8.4GB 5400 rpm (HDD 2)
Performance prior to reformatting
Synthetic:
The hard drive was defragmented prior to testing.
I had 45 gb of data stored on my large hard drive. Before reformatting PCMark2002 gave HDD1 a miserable score of 416 . Sisoftware Sandra gave File System Benchmark = 28MB/sec.
Real-world:
Office 2003 archived using WinRAR 3.40 = Total size 583MB
Task 1: Extract Office 2003 from HDD2 onto the Desktop of the Primary HDD1
Time taken: 4 min : 3 seconds
Performance after to reformatting
Synthetic:
The hard drive was not deframnted prior to testing.
I now have 13.3gb of data stored on HDD1. After reformatting PCMark2002 gave HDD1 a score of 1228 (195% improvement). Sisoftware Sandra gave File System Benchmark = 42MB/sec.
Real-world:
Task 1: Extract Office 2003 from HDD2 onto the Desktop of the Primary HDD1
Time taken: 1 min : 52 seconds
Task 2: Copy Office 2003 from HDD2 to the Desktop of the Primary HDD1, then extract it directly onto the desktop from HDD1 itself
a) Copying = 43 seconds
b) Extraction = 1min: 31 seconds
Total time = 2 min:14 seconds
Both times, the performance was better after reformat. The performance of the "filled" (45gb out of 80gb) hard drive was always low regardless of the amount of times it was defragmented and became lower over time the more files were being stored on it.
Thoughts:
Going raid 0 might improve performance but alone wont prevent "clogging" problems associated with the OS (which was poorly designed). Both hard drives will start to become slow over time as the operating system flaws will be there. And no amount of hard drive defragmentation is going to solve the issue of having more and more files clogging up.
So best solution would be to get 1 fast HDD (ie. Raptor) and have Operating system on it and only main programs; games and all other material should be stored on the additional hard drives. (80gb, 100, 120, etc.) That way your system will be always fast and you can refromat without fear of losing data.
From my testing, I am assuming that the most optimal solution would probably involve something like 74 gig raptors in raid 0 for the OS AND separate hard drive(s) for storing data (can have in raid 0 as well). That way you get the benefit of speed for the operating system and ability to reformat at will anytime without losing major data.
Simply having 2 hard drives in raid 0 isnt going to solve the never-ending Operating system slowdown as the hard drives fill up. Of course only 1 simple test is being done here. But if something as common as extraction gets affected, the more intensive HDD tasks will most likely benefit more from a separate clean OS setup.
Did anyone else have similar experience?
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