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Thread ID: 105491 2009-12-04 03:57:00 Hard Disk Drive speeds.. bazmeister (3216) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
836355 2009-12-04 03:57:00 Am looking at getting a 640GB Western Division external hard drive.

Can someone advise me (as a very much ballpark figure) what sort of time would it take to back-up about 1 GB ? I realise this would be dependent on a number of factors but just looking for a rough idea from someone with something similar ... i.e. 5 minutes or 5 hours sort of thing.

Do they need to be formatted etc to be more efficient...?
bazmeister (3216)
836356 2009-12-04 04:01:00 Even then... :p

What are you actually transferring? A few big files or lots of little ones?

If it was say pictures, you could expect to transfer at a minimum of 5mb a second, more likely around 10 though or 15 if you are lucky.

Say you were transferring at 10 mb/sec, 600mb a minute you are looking at around 1 min 45 secs to 2 min.

So 5 min rather than 5 hours. :p
wratterus (105)
836357 2009-12-04 04:05:00 Using Ghost 2002 to clone a 320GB Seagate SATA to an identicle one, the data transfer varies between 1GB/minute and about 1.4GB/minute, mostly at the higher level.

On an older computer about 5 years old, with IDE drives and Athlon XP 2600, the data rate is from about 900MB/min up to 1200MB/min, not a lot of difference.

Edit: cloning the C: partition which I do weekly, and is 39GB, takes 20 minutes or so.
Terry Porritt (14)
836358 2009-12-04 04:52:00 Thanks guys, that's what I wanted to know - most of my work will be files (data.) Tks again. bazmeister (3216)
836359 2009-12-04 23:18:00 1. As others have noted the 1 TB capacity of the drive is probably pushing the limits of a USB 2.0 system. The version I bought also has the Firewire and eSATA hardware connections and I'm using the Firewire option. But it's still painfully slow, with 1 GB of data taking over an hour to back up and the same to restore. This may be, in part, due to the hardware interface limitations, but also to the included back-up software by Memeo. I cannot yet comment on the longevity of drive's life (about which others have commented). But backing up 240 GB of data (lots of music and video) takes over a day and a half to achieve and the same to restore.
From here
www.amazon.com
feersumendjinn (64)
836360 2009-12-04 23:37:00 Oh gee, I was quoting for back up hard drives plugged into the m/b via caddies, ie direct to SATA or IDE controllers, not USB.

Those times quoted for USB would be pretty useless for any meaningful backing up.
Terry Porritt (14)
836361 2009-12-05 00:06:00 I backup my C drive to another computer over my wired home network the image takes about 20 mins for Win 7 on my C drive, the backup comp is an old P4 with a 250Gb sata drive as the backup drive gary67 (56)
836362 2009-12-05 02:38:00 1GB of data is going to copy pretty quickly if you have a PC made in the last 10 years Agent_24 (57)
836363 2009-12-05 22:35:00 I bought this item, Western Division 640GB model, and have found the results disappointing, I obviously didn't do my homework.

I tested it against the clock with 1.36GB of photographs, (JPG) and it took 6 minutes to store it, this was per copy/paste - USB connection.

While I can live with that, my main reason for the purchase was to back-up/store Flight Simulator files of which I have many GB's. I started to load sceneries files (.bmp) and the initial indication was that 10.17GB would take in the vicinity of 4 hours. After about 45 mins it found a file it didn't like and the whole procedure stopped. It was crawling along at this time and the 4 hours seemed to be a possibility.

I have backed this type of stuff up in the past onto DVD's which is considerably faster, but obviously using up a lot of disks.

My system is about 3 years old, 2.20 Ghz AMD Athlon 64X2 Quad Core, so while no-where near brilliant runs well.

It appears that to use this type of external HD system, overnight running would be necessary for anything of substance.
bazmeister (3216)
836364 2009-12-05 22:52:00 Sorry to have mislead on data speeds, having only used external drives via direct connection to SATA or IDE controllers, I didn't think of USB, my mind had gone a blank.
I had a small form factor Compaq (and still have) that had no 5 1/4 " bay for a caddy, so I rigged up an IDE lead from the motherboard, and a molex power extension lead coming out to the HDD. That worked ok for back up purposes.
Terry Porritt (14)
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