Is my HD partition too big?

[Greg Hess]

Check the event viewer. Any weird errors? Disk copy problems are usually associated with bad cabling or disk errors.

 

Make sure IDE is enabled for both drives (ctrl panel-system-device manager, ide)

[HarryG]

No errors. Just slow to access files&folders, so .max files took longer to load, on some occasions it doesn't load at all. Defragmenting took about 12 or more hours for each drives.

Someone suggested me that the problem lies in the OS. Should I use Win2000/2003Server instead of Win2K Pro?

I've never use or install a Win2000Server before, and since it's lot more expensive & more complicated to install (or so I've heard), I just want 2 be sure if this is the problem.

To be frank, when it comes down to networking, I'm lost.

[kingeldar]

maybe a stupid question but...

 

does ur hard drive SOUND like he always did?

 

cause if it's now making a discreet (not a joke....lol) whistling (might have to open tower to ear it) it's on it's way to the grave....

 

lost two hard drive recently that way

first whistle

then slows down

and after a few weeks.... dies...

[HarryG]

I'll check for the sound. Sounds fine, though I haven't open the case.

 

But in the meantime, i've checked the Primary IDE Channel from control panel as Greg said and found out that both devices are using PIO transfer mode, though the option 'DMA if available' is selected.

Is there a way to tell the device to use ultra DMA?

[kingeldar]

in the motherboard bios i guess but i'm not sure

[HarryG]

I got 1 PC running as a data storage server with this specs:

- P4 2.4ghz (forget the specs)

- Memory DDR 512mb pc2700

- HD : 2 x 120gb Seagate 7200rpm ATA IDE.

- Mobo : intel PE5V

- ethernet D-Link 10/100

- OS : Win2K professional, servicepack3

- Partition system:

HD 1 : C: 20 gb NTFS(system)

D: 100 gb NTFS(data)

HD 2 : E: 120 gb NTFS(data)

- Number of PCs in network : 8

 

drive D is mainly used for 'general data' such as texture mapping, digital photos, RPC data, Marlinstudios files, etc while drive E is for projects data (using 3dsMax): meshes, .max, .dwg, photoshop files, etc.

Both drives are frequently accessed. The PC itself isn't used for working&editing, only for data storage.

 

The main problem is, accessing files (even from the PC itself) is hella-slow. Especially when accessing lots of small files (e.g.: copying 3000 frames of rendered JPG sequence).

Is it because the partition is too 'big'?

I'm thinking of re-partition the HD into smaller 40gb. I'm just not sure if it'll solve the problem.

Or should I use FAT32 instead NTFS?

[Greg Hess]

Both drives are using PIO mode? Well there is part of the problem .

 

Did you ever install the intel chipset drivers/ performance accelerator for your computer?

 

What cable are you using for the two drives? Is it an ATA-100 or higher cable?

[HarryG]

Just installed the latest Intel Application Accelerator for the mobo, and seems like the drives now running in UDMA-5 and gained a significant performance, though still it's not as fast as my other PCs. But it might be caused by the large quantity of data the processor must handle.

Thanks to all of u!

[Greg Hess]

Harry,

 

I believe hd performance drops the most when its asked to copy large amounts of small files vs small amounts of large files.

 

I'm glad the performance accelerator made a difference.

 

If you still think performance is poor, check to make sure the IDE controllers aren't sharing an irq with another device, and try a different cable.