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    HDD speed and anti-virus/spyware

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by scythie, Dec 16, 2007.

  1. scythie

    scythie I died for your sins.

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    Just one question: would HDD speed have a considerable effect on the speed of scanning when using anti-virus or spyware programs? Or is it software dependent, not really on the hard disk's [or any other hardware's] speed?

    Thanks :D
     
    scythie, Dec 16, 2007
    #1
  2. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    Yes, it is mainly based on harddrive speed. I have an identical setup with everything similar other than drivers on my Dell E1505 and my Voodoo ENVY U709. My Dell E1505 has a single 160gb 5400rpm drive, and my Voodoo has two 200Gb 7200rpm drives in a raid 0 array. When I run adaware and avg, my Voodoo always finishes first, the same happens when defragging.

    My dell takes about 7.5 minutes to do a smart scan in adaware, my U709 takes about 4.5 minutes

    My dell takes about 1hr and 35 minutes to scan with AVG antivirus, my Voodo takes around 57 minutes.

    Yes the processor speeds are different, but neither adaware or avg utilize full cpu power.

    A single high density 5400rpm drive, 160gb or greater will perform as well as say 100gb 7200rpm drive.

    I hope this helps

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Dec 16, 2007
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  3. Soulburner

    Soulburner Notebook Evangelist

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    A faster CPU, and faster HDD will both speed of virus scans.

    Faster HDD to get the data to the CPU, and a faster CPU to scan through the data.

    Some virus scanners are simply more efficient as well, and will work faster than others.
     
    Soulburner, Dec 16, 2007
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  4. bmwrob

    bmwrob Notebook Virtuoso

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    With Kaspersky AV, I just ran a scan of an old eMachines desktop with an 80gb hdd, a very slow drive. Not sure anymore what the CPU speed is, but think it's a 2.93GHz Celeron (machine is a T2984). The scan only took about 15-20 minutes. Wish I'd seen this thread first - I'd have timed the scan properly. I think, judging by the info above, that the app itself has as much to do with the time it takes to run a scan, as the speed of the CPU and hdd.
     
    bmwrob, Dec 16, 2007
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