Where's the bottleneck?

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Just a little test.
Copy your files from the 5400rpm drive to your 7500rpm drive.
Then disconnect the 5400 drive. You may find the whole thing loads faster.
The problem with IDE drives on the same channel is that they will transfer data the the speed of the slowest drive.
Also try reorganizing you photos into different folders so you're not displaying so many thumbnails at once (free performance improvment).
Also are your drives formated FAT or ntfs, ntfs is much faster for large number of files in any one directory
Click to expand...

Ok, tried the HD thing, unplugged the 5400 with no change in performance. The folders with fewer photos do load faster (about 15 seconds for a folder of 8 photos to show the thumbnails vs 60-90 seconds for 60 thumbnails) BUT, this isn't practical for me to do with the number of photos I'll take per subject.

The drives are NTFS.

Is that P4 support HT?
Click to expand...

Well, PCMark05 says that it has HT but is disabled. I've read around and if I have version C (or something like that) this chip does have HT and can be enabled... any ideas how to go about checking which version I have and if HT can be turned on?
 
getting new motherboard that support HT ,with DDR400 support, and integrated SATA will solve the problem.

ASUS MB:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131484

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131527
micro:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131546

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131573

Gigabyte MB:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128242

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128305

Asrock micro:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157079


and a nice 1GB DDR400 PC3200 memory

put your old processor

pick the drive you think is right for you

8) 10K RPM RAPTOR 150GB way too... expensive or

:wink: 7200RPM (Seagate,maxtor,WD) SATA with 120~200GB more room, less expensive
 
wee-dude I see that you are getting all kinds of advice up to and including system replacement. I'm trying to be as much help as possible and have been suggesting bang for the buck type upgrades. I'm not clear if you are ready to upgrade you entire system or not. If you are of course the new system would be much faster and better. However if you are just looking to upgrade you should include some kind of hard drive with whatever else you purchase.

1GB of ram might help.
Click to expand...
He already has a gig of ram :roll:

I agree that Raptor would not be cost effective.
 
wee-dude I see that you are getting all kinds of advice up to and including system replacement. I'm trying to be as much help as possible and have been suggesting bang for the buck type upgrades. I'm not clear if you are ready to upgrade you entire system or not. If you are of course the new system would be much faster and better. However if you are just looking to upgrade you should include some kind of hard drive with whatever else you purchase.
Click to expand...

Bang for your buck is certainly what I'm wanting. The HD does seem like the best (i.e. cheapest) option right now. I just want to make sure it is good enough to transfer to a new computer when I get it.

The new computer will have SATA so I just want to be sure I don't bottleneck myself again by transferring an ATA HD to the new computer. Is this a concern?
 
DOH! I got the HD's backwards! Ends up the master HD is a WD running at 5400 with 512kb buffer and the slave is a Maxtor at 7500 with 2 MB buffer.

SOOO... I'm guessing the next step would be swap the HD's and reinstall everything? (Don't know how I missed this when I set the computer up...)


I really hate being stupid...
 
You are smart to plan ahead for your next system. This act of intelligence cancels out getting the hd's mixed up so you are back to even. :)

So now we must talk not only about your current system but about a future system as well. Chances are you would not purchase an PATA drive for a new system if you were starting from scratch, however any new motherboard will come with PATA so using a PATA drive in a new system will be no problem.

No doubt the SATA bus is better but as I've explained that really does not matter for a single drive because the PATA electronics are not the bottleneck. Your new system would work perfect with one new SATA "boot" drive, your new "old" PATA "data" drive on one channel, and a CD/DVD on the other PATA channel.

You will lose performance if you pair drives up on a single cable in a master/slave combo. This is something to check in your current system as well. It can be an issue for your new system if you want more than one DVD/CD drive. Still if you paired up the PATA "data" drive with one of the CD/DVD players on one cable the only time you would take a performance hit would be when you were using both of the devices on the same cable at the same time.

Adding SATA to your current system is a waste of time and money IMO. My advice is to purchase a good PATA drive now for under at or under $100 and use it as a data drive when you get your new system. The smallest drive anyone has suggested is still bigger than both your current drives put together so you could easily run your current system on just the single new drive.
 
You are smart to plan ahead for your next system. This act of intelligence cancels out getting the hd's mixed up so you are back to even. :)

So now we must talk not only about your current system but about a future system as well. Chances are you would not purchase an PATA drive for a new system if you were starting from scratch, however any new motherboard will come with PATA so using a PATA drive in a new system will be no problem.

No doubt the SATA bus is better but as I've explained that really does not matter for a single drive because the PATA electronics are not the bottleneck. Your new system would work perfect with one new SATA "boot" drive, your new "old" PATA "data" drive on one channel, and a CD/DVD on the other PATA channel.

You will lose performance if you pair drives up on a single cable in a master/slave combo. This is something to check in your current system as well. It can be an issue for your new system if you want more than one DVD/CD drive. Still if you paired up the PATA "data" drive with one of the CD/DVD players on one cable the only time you would take a performance hit would be when you were using both of the devices on the same cable at the same time.

Adding SATA to your current system is a waste of time and money IMO. My advice is to purchase a good PATA drive now for under at or under $100 and use it as a data drive when you get your new system. The smallest drive anyone has suggested is still bigger than both your current drives put together so you could easily run your current system on just the single new drive.
Click to expand...

Gotcha... so should I go ahead and try the HD swap and reinstall or will that not really help anything?
 
Gotcha... so should I go ahead and try the HD swap and reinstall or will that not really help anything?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you are asking. Do you have somewhere to back up your data? Are you talking about your existing drives or the potential new one?
 
Gotcha... so should I go ahead and try the HD swap and reinstall or will that not really help anything?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you are asking. Do you have somewhere to back up your data? Are you talking about your existing drives or the potential new one?

Oh, sorry for the confusion...

Basically would my system run better if I were to keep the two current HD's but reinstall XP to run from the faster hard drive. Right now it runs on the slower and smaller cached one. I could back up what I need on DVD.
 
I think that for $50-$100 dollars you should just get a new HD and not even think about backing anything important up to DVD. Yes I think your system would be faster if you made the 7200 the boot drive but no I don't think you should do it that way. If a new hard drive was more expensive it might be worth taking the chance but IMO you can't go wrong with a new HD.
 
Before you go and reinstall every thing, there are downloadable
applications out there that allow you to clone a disk.
Assuming you have enough space on your current Boot disk (the 5400 if I read correctly), copy all the files off the 7500 (or back them up elsewhere). Then clone the boot drive onto the 7500 disk and then change the jumbers to master.
It will save you an awfull lot of work.
 
Before you go and reinstall every thing, there are downloadable
applications out there that allow you to clone a disk.
Assuming you have enough space on your current Boot disk (the 5400 if I read correctly), copy all the files off the 7500 (or back them up elsewhere). Then clone the boot drive onto the 7500 disk and then change the jumbers to master.
It will save you an awfull lot of work.
Click to expand...

Ooo! That sounds like a good idea... any software (free) you'd recommend?
 
Or.......... clone the boot drive to the new 160GB first and copy the data files over to the new 160G drive after is up and running (bootable). This is:

1) easier
2) faster, because you are only copying once
3) more reliable because both original drives are left in tact as a backup


I use Drive Image for cloneing but it costs money. I'm sure the free stuff works fine. Sorry no suggestions on the software. If you bought a retail HD it might come with clone software. I think the one you bought is OEM so it is not going to come with anything, not even a cable.
 
Get yourself a newer Adaptec SCSI controller and a fast 15K RPM drive and join the brotherhood of those who know what it's like.

Should be able to hook up with the above for right around $300.
 
Ok, well thanks for all the advice - I purchased a WD 120 GB, 7500rpm, 8mb cache HD (WD1200JB) from Best Buy for $60 (they had a $50 instant savings on it) plus tax. I had issues with the order of the 160GB from newegg and this was a good deal.

Hmm, as I'm typing this I just realized it was a 1-yr warranty... bummer - I didn't check that. I may see if I can pick up the Best Buy warranty for it...

Anyway, the boot drive is currently being moved to the new drive and I'll copy all the info from the second drive to it. I'll post back here with the results!

Thanks again!
 
.......

BTW do not get an el-cheapo Western Digital drive with a one year warranty!!!!

WD is fine but their cheap line is junk.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't put anything important on that drive reguardless of any BB extended plan. Who knows you might get lucky. The issue is the quality of the drive not the warranty BTW. I've only ever had one drive fail before it was obsolete and it was a 1year WD. A guy I work with runs a computer company and he also avoids the 1 year WDs based on his dealings with said drives.

The other thing I was going to mention is that the system will be faster if you reinstall and leave off any junk and extra baggage that you really don't need. Cloning is a good/easy option but your system would be faster if you reinstall.
 
.......

BTW do not get an el-cheapo Western Digital drive with a one year warranty!!!!

WD is fine but their cheap line is junk.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't put anything important on that drive reguardless of any BB extended plan. Who knows you might get lucky. The issue is the quality of the drive not the warranty BTW. I've only ever had one drive fail before it was obsolete and it was a 1year WD. A guy I work with runs a computer company and he also avoids the 1 year WDs based on his dealings with said drives.

The other thing I was going to mention is that the system will be faster if you reinstall and leave off any junk and extra baggage that you really don't need. Cloning is a good/easy option but your system would be faster if you reinstall.

Hmm... maybe I'll take the hd back and try again with the one from egghead. ARGH - The Curse of Stupid strikes again!
 
Ok, problem soved! I took the HD back to Best Buy and ordered a new system. That should fix everything!

Thanks for all the replies - you guys have been great!
 
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