Jump to content

SSD VS HDD Netbook boot race.


Super Fast

Recommended Posts

I decided, just for the fun of it, to try a netbook boot race. Specs are below:

 

- Both have the same clean installed 32 Bit 7

- Both have the same AVG 2012 with updates

- Both are running with performance set to full power

 

- Acer has 160 GB HDD (5,400 RPM) with 140 GB free

- Dell has 16 GB SSD with 5.4 GB free

- Both have 1 GB RAM

 

- Acer > Dual core 1.66 GHZ atom

- Dell > Dual core 1.6 GHZ atom

 

* Both are defragged with Defraggler 2.07, have System Restore off, & have 1 program loading (AVG) at boot.

__________________

 

Acer One D260:

 

- Power On > 42 Seconds

- Power Off > 17 Seconds

- Restart > 53 Seconds

 

Dell Inspiron Mini 10

 

- Power On > 42 Seconds

- Power Off > 22 Seconds

- Restart > 64 Seconds

 

Winner: Acer!

 

* I thought it was very interesting, that despite the Dell having an SSD drive, the Acer still beat it in shutdown & restart times.

__________________

 

How it all breaks down:

 

Acer > 6 seconds saved doing a reboot.

Dell > 0 seconds saved doing a reboot. Exact same time doing a reboot as a power on/power off cycle.

 

- Power On > Both have the same boot up time

- Power Off > Acer wins by 5 seconds

- Restart > Acer wins by 11 seconds

__________________

 

I know, I know, Dell had a small & slow SSD, but still, Acer had the 5,400 RPM drive.

And yes, I know you aren't supposed to defrag SSD, but I did it to eliminate any hint of fragmentation causing slow downs for more equal testing.

Wonder how fast Acer would be with a large & fast SSD + 2 GB RAM?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How the heck is that possible? O.O There must've been some other factors...

How is what possible? That could be anything. I don't know how to tell you how what is possible, unless I know what you mean by what. Maybe if u let me know more about ur question, I can give u an answer...

 

I'd love to help u, but I don't know how, cause I am trying to figure out what you mean by "How is that possible?"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know one possibility.

 

I will give you a clue.

 

What is the difference between an eBay Fake 16 GB Flash Drive and an eBay Fake 16 GB SSD ?

What does this have to do with anything? What are you saying? Dell uses smaller SSD drives because they are cheaper. So they can compete.

Personally, I would have to say that it makes better sense to use use a regular 5,400 or 7,200 RPM HDD, at least until SSD become cheap enough that you can put something with a little bit of size on the netbook. Say, 120 GB or more. Even 64 GB would be a vast improvement over a 16 GB model...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am saying that your SSD may not have the quality and speed that is expected of a SSD.

 

It might be informative to define as SOURCE a folder which occupies a large amount of disk space,

and define as TARGET an empty folder,

and then run a simple BAT script such as

ECHO %TIME%
COPY %SOURCE% %DESTINATION%
ECHO %TIME%

That would measure to within 0.010 Seconds how long it takes to read and then write 1 GByte (or whatever amount you choose),

I suggest that caching the data via RAM should be disabled for that test.

 

Perform that test on both Laptops and see which wins.

 

I can still do mental arithmetic, but for the challenge some years ago I devised a script for XP x32 that still works on Win7 x64

I have used a 1 GB image file as an example below

@echo off

 

SET SOURCE=E:\Images\v5\2FE769AFA97E71E8-09-09.inc_06.mrimg

 

echo %TIME% #

FOR /F "tokens=1-4 delims=:." %%d in ("%TIME%") do (

SET /A T1=%%d*360000+1%%e*6000+1%%f*100+1%%g-610100

)

 

COPY %SOURCE% E:\Test\

 

echo %TIME% ##

FOR /F "tokens=1-4 delims=:." %%d in ("%TIME%") do (

SET /A T2=%%d*360000+1%%e*6000+1%%f*100+1%%g-610100-%T1%

)

 

echo Copying %SOURCE% took %T2%0. mSec

pause

Regretably the forum CODE box is still broken today - blank lines get omitted - hence QUOTE box instead.

 

When I run that script the result is

19:41:19.83 #

1 file(s) copied.

19:41:21.28 ##

Copying E:\Images\v5\2FE769AFA97E71E8-09-09.inc_06.mrimg took 1450. mSec

Press any key to continue . . .

NB I display the pre and post time stamps for when I am sceptical of the accuracy of a digital computer. :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am saying that your SSD may not have the quality and speed that is expected of a SSD.

 

Oh, ok! I knew full well it is a small SSD, but what can you do? If it was mine, I would upgrade, but it belonged to someone else.

But I tested it while I had it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

Dell uses smaller SSD drives because they are cheaper. So they can compete.

They should ship that 16 GB "back to the future", i.e.; 1998. I couldn't stomach only having a 16 GB hard disk, wouldn't be able to do jack s**t with it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, ok! I knew full well it is a small SSD, but what can you do? If it was mine, I would upgrade, but it belonged to someone else.

But I tested it while I had it.

My comments are totally unrelated to size - just the speed.

 

I have a 1 TB Primary HDD

I have deliberately shrunk C:\ down to only 25 GB which has 9 GB of free space and 7 GB of never knowingly used Pagefile.sys and Hiberfil.sys

When I move Pagefile.sys to the Secondary drive and dump Hiberfil.sys I could shrink C:\ down to 16 GB and still have 7 GB of free space :o

(But I will probably not bother shrinking because that changes identification and Macrium will have to start a new FULL image backup.)

 

I like small.

I just could not bear to face a screen that requires me to run CHKDSK on C:\ if that involved waiting for 1 TB to be processed.

If I ever defragged 1 TB of free space it would be time for my children to get the doctor to sign-off paperwork,

and have me put in a nursing home away from the Internet :rolleyes:

 

I only use C:\ for Windows and the absolute minimum of applications that need to be installed on C:\

Everything else is on other partitions on the primary HDD,

and are mostly familiar Portable applications that I copied from my XP x32 Laptop,

and because they are 32 bit they take half the space of x64 versions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.