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    Hard Drive Performance

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by CanadianDude, Feb 2, 2007.

  1. CanadianDude

    CanadianDude Notebook Deity

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    I have a question. With my old Toshiba M70 laptop, I had a 120 gb 5400 rpm hard drive in there. At one point I had downloaded so many videos that I only had about 300 mb left on the hard disk. I did however manage to get the # of processes down to about 27, to help performance.

    The thing I want to know is is there any correlation between the amount of stuff you have on your hard disk vs overall performance? (ie, startup, program loading times etc).

    Like for example would my M70 with a full hard disk perform the same as if its hard disk is relatively empty???
     
    CanadianDude, Feb 2, 2007
    #1
  2. Thibault

    Thibault Banned

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    Do you defragment your hard drive?
     
    Thibault, Feb 2, 2007
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  3. CanadianDude

    CanadianDude Notebook Deity

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    once a month when it was completely fulll
     
    CanadianDude, Feb 2, 2007
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  4. Lil Mayz

    Lil Mayz Notebook Deity

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    Well I guess so. If there are more bits of information on the magnetic platters, it will take longer for the disk head to find the bits of information it needs and send it to the RAM.

    However, defragmenting moves all the bits to one location, except Unmovable system files.

    It sounds like you might want to buy an eSata external Hard Drive or something to store all that video :p
     
    Lil Mayz, Feb 3, 2007
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  5. Metamorphical

    Metamorphical Good computer user

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    I'm going to move this thread to the hardware forum. It qualifies for being on topic and it will get more responses there.
     
    Metamorphical, Feb 3, 2007
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  6. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    One contributory factor may be a fragmented swap file. If you have the default setting of letting Windows resize the swap file as needed then it will become progressively fragmented. The swap file is best if it is in one block and near to start of the HDD where transfer rates are the fastest.

    In fact, as the HDD fills up and the recent files go near the end, they are also in the place where transfer rates are the slowest, often half the speed of the fast end of the disk. Run HDtune and see how the speed drops across the disk.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Feb 3, 2007
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  7. hehe299792458

    hehe299792458 Notebook Deity

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    If you only have 100mb left on the HD, then obviously performance is going to suffer. I'd say leave at least 5GB on their in case the computer has to move something around. If you for instance, have 6Gb and DEFRAGMENT regularly, then the performance is not going to be affected much (relative an most empty one). Also, The Windows Defrag software sucks. Get something like Diskeeper Pro.
     
    hehe299792458, Feb 3, 2007
    #7