why does one pc run slower than the other?

[Jon Dobson]

I have 3 nearly identical Dell P4 pc's running nearly identical XP operating
systems and software, yet one pc runs much more slowly than the others. For
example, a program I recently wanted to install on all three units installed
somewhat slowly but completely on the 2 faster units, but clogged the slower
unit so much and took so long that I finally abandoned installation. My
question is why does this one pc runs more slowly than the others? RAM is
idential on each unit. The only thing different about the pc's are the hard
drives- the two faster units have 160 GB drives about 60- 70% data filled
and the slower one has a 20 GB drive about 80% full. I checked different
drive specs today and did find differences in onboard drive memory and a few
other factors. Can a different hard drive really make that much difference
in speed even though everything else is identical?

Thanks,
Jon

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have 3 nearly identical Dell P4 pc's running nearly identical XP
operating systems and software, yet one pc runs much more slowly than the
others. For example, a program I recently wanted to install on all three
units installed somewhat slowly but completely on the 2 faster units, but
clogged the slower unit so much and took so long that I finally abandoned
installation. My question is why does this one pc runs more slowly than
the others? RAM is idential on each unit. The only thing different about
the pc's are the hard drives- the two faster units have 160 GB drives about
60- 70% data filled and the slower one has a 20 GB drive about 80% full. I
checked different drive specs today and did find differences in onboard
drive memory and a few other factors. Can a different hard drive really
make that much difference in speed even though everything else is
identical?

Thanks,
Jon

First, a 20 gig drive has to be considerably older than a 160 gig drive. I
haven't seen a new 20 gig drive for sale for a few years now.

Yes, many older drives are considerably slower than newer drives, because of
factors like slower transfer rates, slower rotation speeds, and smaller
caches.

Also, comparing the free space percentage can be misleading. The 20 gig
drive has around 4 gig free, the 160s have around 50 gig free. That
matters to Windows and installation programs, which often require double the
space of the final installation during the installation.

If you're finding that performance is degrading on the 20 gig drive, that
can be a sign that it's near its end of life. In fact it's likely that
it's well beyond it, if you look at the MTBF values (mean time before
failure). If this is the case, replace it.

New drives are cheap. Where I am, 160 gig drives are around $50 this week
(they drop regularly). I'd suggest that getting one and just cloning the
20 gig to it is cheaper than the value of the time you'll spend trying to
recover from a failed drive. And yes, you'll probably find it faster.

HTH
-pk

 

[Peter Foldes]

HD are all the same RPM and they are all IDE or mixed with SATA

 

[Bob I]

replace that 20 GB drive.