Do a Hard Drive CheckYour hard drive is just one part of your computer system that is responsible for the whole speed and performance of the system. If your processor is fast and your hard drive is slow, then your system is slow. See which of these factors may be influencing the speed of your hard drive. Hard drive check - The speed (or spin rate)Your IDE drive comes in two flavors. It is either a (a) 5400 RPM drive, or a (b) 7200 RPM drive. Most people do not check this when they are buying a new computer. There is a difference in the costs, and you will notice a difference in the performance sooner or later. Most low end systems will come with 5400 RPM drives. When you are buying a computer system, and especially an uninstalled hard drive, make sure to check out both the capacity (size) and the spin rate of the drive. A large slow drive could be a bottleneck in a P4 or similar system. However, if you don't need the speed of a gaming machine or the processing capabilities of a file server, the less expensive 5400 RPM drive will suffice. Is your hard drive FAT, FAT32, or NTFS?When you set up a new hard drive you have a choice between three file systems. You can choose the new technology file system (NTFS), FAT, or FAT32. You can convert from one type to the other except that you will not be able to reverse an NTFS system to either of the others, except you format your hard drive.
To use NTFS system, for example with Windows XP, the drive (or volume) capacity must be at least 10MB. This is small since most drives have gigabytes (GB) of storage space nowadays. The FAT filing system is like that used on a floppy. It's the file system type that reigned during the DOS era. You could still load XP on a FAT system but you sacrifice the efficiency and security you get with the NTFS system. FAT32 is typically used by Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium Edition. In terms of efficiency, you have FAT < FAT32 < NTFS. There are also limits on the file sizes. Maximum file size with FAT is 2 GB. FAT32 accommodates a maximum file size of 4 GB, but the file size on NTFS is limited only by the size of the hard drive. So use NTFS if you have Windows 2000, Windows XP, or later. You get more speed, efficiency and security. Master-Slave RelationshipThere is a potential "slow-down" situation resulting from the attachment of your CD drive (CD-RW/DVD as well) as slave on the same IDE channel with the Drive C. This is assuming that Drive C has the operating system (OS) installed on it. Most motherboards nowadays have at least two IDE on-board connection. If you have one hard drive, make the CD drive a secondary master instead of a slave to the primary drive. In other words, slaving another drive with the drive having the OS is not very efficient. You should do it as a last resort. Drive Contents and File ArrangementHow could the contents of your hard drive affect the speed? What does file arrangement have to do with drive efficiency? You'll be surprised that this is one of the biggest factors that influence your hard drive's performance. Your drive stores your programs, data, and temporary files, as well. The impact of temporary internet files, and temporary files in general, is so great that I deal with it separately, in order to keep this page reasonably short. Files stored on your hard drive are not usually kept in one contiguous piece. Parts of a file can be in several places on the volume. This is more so as more and more files are kept in the volume. Use the check disk utility to optimize storage space and correctly arrange the contents of your hard drive into an efficient storage volume. To do this, click Start, point to Programs, Accessories, System Tools, then Disk Cleanup. The disk cleanup utility will guide you through a cleanup of unwanted files on your hard drive. If the files are significantly fragmented on the hard drive, you can select the option to defrag. NOTE that it can take several hours to defrag a hard drive that is very fragmented, so it is best to start defrag and let it run when you may not need to use the computer. If, unfortunately, your hard drive fails, if your operating system will not start or if you cannot access a partition, do not panic AND do not write anything else to the drive. Find out how to take the right steps in any hard drive recovery if you want to save your data.
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Computer & Parts |
Learn how drive spin rate, file system
type, master-slave arrangement, and (of course) your hard
drive contents affect the speed and efficiency of your hard
drive. You can take some simple, do-able steps to give your
hard drive a big boost. Do you know the RPM of your drive? The best way to check your hard drive revolution per minute rate is at the manufacturer's site. If you know the model of your drive you can get this (and more) information there. Alternately, run the system information program on your computer. Just click Start--Accessories--System Tools-- System Information. In the System Information window, expand the Components tree on the left, and click Storage. Expand the Storage branch (if it is collapsed), and click Drives. Wait until the program retrieves the information. This will be shown in the information pane on the right side of the window. Click here to see a picture of the System Information Window You can then write down the drive model number and use this to get information on your hard drive. I entered my drive model number in the search box on Google.com and found the RPM of my drive.
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