Usb drive faster than internal drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter spamlet
  • Start date Start date
S

spamlet

Guest
Browsing through the thread on Fat32 vs NTFS for back up, I am reminded to
ask about the unexpected 'bonus' I got when I bought a couple of MyBook
500gig usb drives for back up.

In the first place I was a bit miffed to find there were no on/off buttons
and only one type of input connection permitted at the back - USB - when I
had expected there would be ethernet and firewire type connections possible
too. I think I would go for the 'world edition' next time.

Secondly, I had been led to believe that drives connected by usb would be
slower than internal drives; and, indeed, some people have advised imaging
the internal drive and then replacing it with one of the larger external
ones removed from its case. It turns out however, that pictures from the pc
load onto the external drive much faster than the internal one. The
internal one is only 40gig. Is this speed difference a function of the size
of the drives or is there likely to be something wrong with the internal
drive or its connections? It has always seemed a bit slow...

Cheers,

S
 
Re: Usb drive faster than internal drive?

XP has a function where if a certain number of I/O errors are logged
the controller will step back it's operating mode to a slower value. If
the drive step-back reaches PIO mode instead of UDMA performance
will be degraded significantly. Also spindle rotation speed and the
amount of Caching RAM resident on the drive will affect throughput.
A newer ( larger ) drive will likely have a 7200 RPM speed and up to
a 32-Megabyte cache.

"spamlet" <spam.morespam@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:ODQssO$JJHA.920@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Browsing through the thread on Fat32 vs NTFS for back up, I am reminded to
> ask about the unexpected 'bonus' I got when I bought a couple of MyBook
> 500gig usb drives for back up.
>
> In the first place I was a bit miffed to find there were no on/off buttons
> and only one type of input connection permitted at the back - USB - when I
> had expected there would be ethernet and firewire type connections
> possible too. I think I would go for the 'world edition' next time.
>
> Secondly, I had been led to believe that drives connected by usb would be
> slower than internal drives; and, indeed, some people have advised imaging
> the internal drive and then replacing it with one of the larger external
> ones removed from its case. It turns out however, that pictures from the
> pc load onto the external drive much faster than the internal one. The
> internal one is only 40gig. Is this speed difference a function of the
> size of the drives or is there likely to be something wrong with the
> internal drive or its connections? It has always seemed a bit slow...
>
> Cheers,
>
> S
>
 
Re: Usb drive faster than internal drive?

On Oct 6, 9:39 pm, "spamlet" <spam.mores...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Browsing through the thread on Fat32 vs NTFS for back up, I am reminded to
> ask about the unexpected 'bonus' I got when I bought a couple of MyBook
> 500gig usb drives for back up.
>
> In the first place I was a bit miffed to find there were no on/off buttons
> and only one type of input connection permitted at the back - USB - when I
> had expected there would be ethernet and firewire type connections possible
> too.  I think I would go for the 'world edition' next time.
>
> Secondly, I had been led to believe that drives connected by usb would be
> slower than internal drives; and, indeed, some people have advised imaging
> the internal drive and then replacing it with one of the larger external
> ones removed from its case.  It turns out however, that pictures from the pc
> load onto the external drive much faster than the internal one.  The
> internal one is only 40gig.  Is this speed difference a function of the size
> of the drives or is there likely to be something wrong with the internal
> drive or its connections?  It has always seemed a bit slow...
>
> Cheers,
>
> S

Internal drives are always supposed to be faster since the internal
hard drive ports have th priority over teh other ports.
 
Re: Usb drive faster than internal drive?


"spamlet" <spam.morespam@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:ODQssO$JJHA.920@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Browsing through the thread on Fat32 vs NTFS for back up, I am reminded to
> ask about the unexpected 'bonus' I got when I bought a couple of MyBook
> 500gig usb drives for back up.
>
> In the first place I was a bit miffed to find there were no on/off buttons
> and only one type of input connection permitted at the back - USB - when I
> had expected there would be ethernet and firewire type connections
> possible too. I think I would go for the 'world edition' next time.
>
> Secondly, I had been led to believe that drives connected by usb would be
> slower than internal drives; and, indeed, some people have advised imaging
> the internal drive and then replacing it with one of the larger external
> ones removed from its case. It turns out however, that pictures from the
> pc load onto the external drive much faster than the internal one. The
> internal one is only 40gig. Is this speed difference a function of the
> size of the drives or is there likely to be something wrong with the
> internal drive or its connections? It has always seemed a bit slow...
>
> Cheers,
>
> S
>
As usual, the devil is in the details.
A disk which has a large buffer will have a transfer rate that is faster (in
some instances, far faster) than one which has a small buffer.
A reason is that a large buffer allows the computer to send data to the disk
in large spurts. As disks read/write at a constant rate (usually not
specified to us users), the large buffer allows the device to achieve a
transfer rate that is closer to the disk read/write speed.
A disk which has a higher rotational speed will transfer data faster because
the internal read/write speed is higher. Also, the seek time is closely
connected to the rotational speed.
The interface makes a difference because there can be less software between
the cpu and the drive electronics. I have no idea whether IDE is inherently
faster than USB or not.

As you can see, there is no clear answer to the question of which type if
disk is faster.

My guess is that if you have drives that are otherwise identical, IDE would
win so long as it stayed in DMA.

The type of drive that you bought is turned on when you connect to a USB
port, provided that you connected it to a power strip first. If you want to
turn it off, all I can tell is to safely remove it.

Jim
 
Re: Usb drive faster than internal drive?


"Jim" <j.n@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:u3AzDBAKJHA.1156@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>
> "spamlet" <spam.morespam@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:ODQssO$JJHA.920@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> Browsing through the thread on Fat32 vs NTFS for back up, I am reminded
>> to ask about the unexpected 'bonus' I got when I bought a couple of
>> MyBook 500gig usb drives for back up.
>>
>> In the first place I was a bit miffed to find there were no on/off
>> buttons and only one type of input connection permitted at the back -
>> USB - when I had expected there would be ethernet and firewire type
>> connections possible too. I think I would go for the 'world edition'
>> next time.
>>
>> Secondly, I had been led to believe that drives connected by usb would be
>> slower than internal drives; and, indeed, some people have advised
>> imaging the internal drive and then replacing it with one of the larger
>> external ones removed from its case. It turns out however, that pictures
>> from the pc load onto the external drive much faster than the internal
>> one. The internal one is only 40gig. Is this speed difference a
>> function of the size of the drives or is there likely to be something
>> wrong with the internal drive or its connections? It has always seemed a
>> bit slow...
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> S
>>
> As usual, the devil is in the details.
> A disk which has a large buffer will have a transfer rate that is faster
> (in some instances, far faster) than one which has a small buffer.
> A reason is that a large buffer allows the computer to send data to the
> disk in large spurts. As disks read/write at a constant rate (usually not
> specified to us users), the large buffer allows the device to achieve a
> transfer rate that is closer to the disk read/write speed.
> A disk which has a higher rotational speed will transfer data faster
> because the internal read/write speed is higher. Also, the seek time is
> closely connected to the rotational speed.
> The interface makes a difference because there can be less software
> between the cpu and the drive electronics. I have no idea whether IDE is
> inherently faster than USB or not.
>
> As you can see, there is no clear answer to the question of which type if
> disk is faster.
>
> My guess is that if you have drives that are otherwise identical, IDE
> would win so long as it stayed in DMA.
>
> The type of drive that you bought is turned on when you connect to a USB
> port, provided that you connected it to a power strip first. If you want
> to turn it off, all I can tell is to safely remove it.
>
> Jim


Cheers to you both, though a bit of glossary work was necessary to follow
it!

A new drive sounds like a good idea I think.

Jim: the MyBooks have their own transformers, though my little Buffalo
portable is powered off its USB. It too has no offswitch, but, unlike the
MyBooks, isn't really meant to be plugged in all the time.

The silly thing about the 'safely remove' option, is that there is no
'safely reconnect' equivalent, so I have had to put the MyBook power
supplies on a separate extension lead to turn it on and off without having
to reboot. Somehow, it never occurred to me to research how much extra
clutter I would have to have under my feet, when deciding what to buy.
Under my desk is getting to look like the modern rock guitarist's effects
pedal array!
 
Back
Top