Speed aspect of hdd

A

Audiophreak

Geek Trainee
Hi, I only just found out that hdd has a speed aspect as well as size, I never thought about it before. Rps, buffer, and access time all contribute to how fast data can be taken off the disk.I'm thinking of upgrading from 40Mb to 80Mb. I'm concerned with speed in all aspects, not just the net connection, but the general response time when I open anything inside my own system too. I don't know what speed my current drive is, but I am guessing from the cheapish price I paid that it is average if not poor, probably 500 and a bit, or 700 and a bit. I want the new one to be fast, 10000Rps with a 4.5ms access speed. So here's the question. If I put this new fast drive in, I figure I should reinstall the OS to the fast drive and keep the slow one for storing files and other programs. I don't know for sure, but it seems logical to me that having the OS on the faster drive is going to increase the speed performance better. Would I be right to guess this?
 
Yes, you definitely want your OS on the fastest drive you have, if at all possible.
As for your system, the 10,000RPM disks are either SCSI or SATA. If you don't have either on your motherboard, you will have to get a controller card for either of these.
If you're going to be upgrading the whole system, or the motherboard at least, don't do a reinstall until then.

In the mean time, you might gain a little extra speed if your swap file is on the new drive.
 
Swap file?

Well my ignorance is coming into play here, so I have to ask "What is a swap file?" ... and I also have to ask, why should I not do a reinstall until I upgrade the motherboard?

I wasn't looking at going that far in this round of things. My present motherboard can support a 2.3 processor and I'm ok with that for now. So I was just looking at adding 40MB of faster disk space, and some extra ramm. And the next month I'll get the 2.3 processor and heatsink. That will be me for another 6 months I'd say. Gonna save hard and try to put together a super performer before years end.
 
AudioPhreak, basically if you are going to get a new motherboard you will have to reinstall your OS anyway, for example: when u put a new graphics card in your OS has have the drivers loaded on e.t.c

if you try to use the OS install your running now on a new motherboard the likely hood is it wont work. Sometimes people do get away with it, but its usually a safe bet to format and reinstall your OS when making such a significant hardware change. (especially if your using a version of XP as it really wont like it :) )

as for your question on the swap file: "A swap file or pagefile as some OS's call it, is a space on a hard disk used as a virtual memory extension of a computer's real memory (RAM). Having a swap file allows your computer's operating system to pretend that you have more RAM than you actually do."

By default windows allocates the size of the swap file by itself. depending on what system you have its usually a good idea to disable windows allocating it and according to the amount of Physical ram your computer has, allocate it yourself.

hope this helps
 
The reason you reinstall Windows after a motherboard upgrade is that you're going to a new chipset, and that constitutes a major hardware change itself, particularly in regards to the IDE controllers. Windows doesn't like that being pulled out from under under it and replaced. Again, it can be made to work, but there's a lot less hassle if you just do a reinstall.

You're looking to do some upgrades, and since you are, you'll benefit from having a newer motherboard to go along with the new HDD and CPU.

For the swap file, don't think that having unlimited RAM will do it. Only the stuff you need to do the current task at hand is in RAM. Everything else is in the swap file. The swap file is basically a place for other stuff to be on-deck.
 
Upgrade without new mobo

Well, I was hoping to do the current round of upgrades without a new motherboard. The Asus website says my current mobo can support a Pentium 4 up to 2.3, which is quite an imrpovement on my current 1.7. But I'm not looking to do that till next month.

What I want to put in right now is a second hdd, a fast one. and some more ramm. Do you think I can do this with my current Asus P4B?

Now I come to the problem. I took the side of my case like you said, the first time I have ever looked into a computer by the way. I can see everything, but I have no idea what I'm looking at and what should be looking for. You said I should go for ddr not sdram for my memory upgrade. OK, but how do I know my board can accept that. www.crucial.com gave me recomendations for ram and they were all DIMM ( which I take it is another way of saying SDRAM? ) Should I trust crucial, and if not, what should I look for to see if I can put ddr in?

As for a second drive, what do I have to look for to see if there is room for another drive?

Please be quite specific about describing what I should be looking at, I have never done this before.

BTW, I appreciate this help immensely.

Andy
 
More info

Here's some more info on my motherboard to help you give me good advice.

168-pin DIMM Banking: 3 (3 banks of 1)
AGP Support: 2x and 4x
Chipset: Intel 845
Error Detection Support: ECC and non-ECC
Max Unbuffered SDR SDRAM: 3072MB
Module Types Supported: Unbuffered only
SDR SDRAM Frequencies: PC133
Supported DRAM Types: SDR SDRAM only
USB Support: 1.x Compliant

I take it this means my mobo can't support ddr?
 
Yup. Here's something else you might think of: there are 4 different variations of the 2.4GHz P4. The plain 2.4: Northwood core and 400MHz Front Side Bus (FSB); 2.4B, Northwood core, 533MHz FSB; 2.4C:Northwood core, 800MHz FSB; 2.4A: Prescott core, 800MHz FSB.
Right now, you can only put in the 2.4, so that's a limitation right there.
You can get a nice performance boost without investing a ton of cash in the system.
I recommend Abit's IS7 series and some Kingston PC3200 ValuRAM (2x 256MB) so you can run dual-channel memory and have some nice bandwith going to the P4. The 2.4C is a good choice. The Prescott core tends to run pretty hot, especially the higher speeds, but thats likely due to it not really being intended for the current socket 478 the P4's come in.
Pretty much all P4 boards come with SATA connectors, and I know for a fact the IS7 series does.
 
I'm lost...

Sorry but you've got me a bit lost here. First you said I can only install the 2.4 cpu, and you said that's a limitation, but that's quite fast isn't it. And what is the Abit's IS7 series? Is that a cpu or what? And you suggest Kingston PC3200 ValuRAM (2x 256MB), into the two remaining slots, but why put 256MB into a slot when I can put 512 into one slot, and have another slot for another 512 later?

I had some tech guys from uni come and open the case and look. They said I can't put a 2.4 into the Asus P4B. But if you are dissagreeing with them I'll trust you of course.

So let me get this straight. I can't put in ddr, but I can go up as high as a P4 2.4 of some kind, and you recommend the 2.4C? And put some more ramm in, you recommend Kingston PC3200 ValuRAM (2x 256MB),? Sorry to sound like a dummy but that's pretty much what I am.

I was also bummed out to learn from the guys that the P4B will not support the faster 10000rpm hdd that I was thinking of. So, sinse storage is not a bit thing I might hold off on hdd till I upgrade the whole mobo, as I was looking a new hdd more for the speed aspect of having the OS on it rather than cause I'm out of space.
 
With your current board, you can put a 2.4GHz in, but it's the 2.4/400MHz FSB one. No A,B,or C part.

The Abit IS7 series is a set of motherboards from Abit. There are a few variations of it, depending on features. It's based on Intel's i865PE chipset, and supports dual-channel memory. This is the reason for the 2 x 256MB sticks. One stick for each channel. This gives two pipes to the P4, which loves memory bandwith. I recommend the Kingston ValueRAM just because I'm running it my IS7-E and it's working fine. My Review. The P4 2.4C is good, although the 2.6C and 2.8C P4's might get you a little faster speed for a few extra bucks, but the 2.4C is fine.


I'm not surprised your board doesn't support it. You're thinking of Western Digital's Raptor drives for SATA. These are the only ATA drives that run at 10,000RPM. All other SATA or older ATA drives run no faster than 7200RPM. WD no longer manufacture SCSI hard drives (the best, fastest, and most expensive type of hard drives), so they were able to go all out here. You can still get these drives and run them with your board, but you'll need to purchase an additional controller card for it, which can run anywhere from $30-50, depending on who made it. You can get the IS7-E for like $85 or so on-line...and it has SATA included.
 
Partial upgrade

Thanks again. I don't think I'm ready to change the motherboard at this stage, financially, that will have to wait till the next round of upgrades. So I think I'll just go with definitely getting the ramm and you suggested. I'll think about the 2.4C cpu, perhaps I should wait till I change motherboards and go straight to a faster one, just thinking about saving money in the long run. I also don't think I'll get another hdd, cause I know when I upgrade the motherboard I'll want the fast one, and then I'll be left with a hdd that I paid for that is no use to me.

Just for informations sake, I live in Seoul, South Korea. And I've checking some online stores that sell hardware. If I'm reading right, Seagate also do the fast hdd, and both companies do a 15000rpm drive as well. Damn that's fast!
 
The PC3200 I suggested is DDR, so it won't work with your system. PC133 is the fastest you can drop in your motherboard. Again, it's basically out, so I wouldn't invest much, if anything in it.
 
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