Newbie question

steffche 2005-08-07 22:25:48 UTC #1

Hi all,

First time post.....

I have recently put together my own PC using the following components..

Gigabyte 8IPE775 Pro Mthbrd
IntelP4 (64) 3.2Ghz
160Gb WD SATA HDD
1Gb RAM
Pioneer 109 Burner
...
...

I plan to use the PC for DVD backups, and have been using 1ClickDVDCopy.

When I first completed my build, I had only one single partition, and 1ClickDVDCopy seemed to work quite fast. I backed up a few DVD's with no problem.

Then I had to re-formatt the HDD de to other issues, and decided to create a few partitions....according to Radified guide... C: drive for SYstem and Apps, D: for documents and E: for DVD and Video editing.

Since then, 1ClickDVDCopy just doesn't seem to work as fast as it did in the beginning. Is it because it has to write to the E: drive instead of C: ??

Also, I would like to know if there is any benifit in buying a DVD ROM drive and use it as the reader and the Pioneer 109 as the burner, and if so, which DVD ROM drive would be most appropriate....?

Any advice or suggetions would be very much appreciated....

Thanking you in advance....

harley2ride 2005-08-08 08:09:44 UTC #2

You will get the best performance by having two physical hd's. One for operating system and software, and other for movies, pictures, etc. Make the movie HD, secondary, and put burner on Primary ide.

chas0039 2005-08-08 08:35:33 UTC #3

If you do some reading, you can flash your 109 to the A09 firmware and this will allow your drive to rip DL discs at around 12X which is as fast as most drives can do without errors slowing them down. Given that the new series of drives coming out this year may offer something you want, it would be a better use of your money to rip and burn with the 109 and wait until you find out if you want an additional burner. I use my 109 for ripping as I only found one media type that is better burned on the Pioneer.

If you are set on an additional reader I can recommend the Liteon 16P9S with codeguys firmware as a good fast ripper.

I very much agree you will see a significant increase in yout processing speed with 2 HDs. When I recode it shaves 5-10 minutes off the operation to have the source files on one HD and the writien files on the 2nd HD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131410

http://codeguys.rpc1.org/firmwares.html

http://www.dvd-recordable.org/wwwimgs/media/flash/html/Firmware/index.php?path=PIONEER%2F

TimC 2005-08-08 08:40:54 UTC #4

I must admit I don't like the idea of partitioning an HD like you've done. I do as H2R suggests, except I've got 3.
It's possible that the drop in performance is because of what you've done in that when a converting app is running it may well be using workspace on the C Drive & then trying to access one of the other partitions plus the operating system is making demands on the C drive. This means greater read/write head movement & a possible overhead in switching partitions. When it's on the same drive then head movement is minimised as data blocks will be written fairly close to each other , with partitions workfiles will probably go to , say, the outside section of the disk & final files to the inner section.
I hope I've explained that OK, I know what I mean but getting it across is not quite so easy.

steffche 2005-08-08 16:03:55 UTC #5

I do understand what you're saying regarding having two Hd's. I un-installed all my DVD copying/ripping software last night because initially I had installed it all on my D: partition...then decided to move it back to my C: partition...I think this cause a slight problem (not sure what though) because after that it took a long time to even just open 1ClickDVDCopy. Since I unistalled and re-installed it on the C: drive, it seems to launch alot quicker...but it got too late to test it out last night....so tonight I will test it and see what happens. If still no good I will look into a second hard disk...!

ps. Thanks for the replies everyone!

steffche 2005-08-09 22:41:09 UTC #6

I noticed that in the settings on 1ClickDVDCopy you can specify teh "working Directory"...it was by default set to C:, and I figured that if my destnation folder is my F: partition, then shouldn't my working directory be on F: to shorten or reduce the need to go back and forth between partitions C: and F: ???

Does this sound right to anyone?

TimC 2005-08-09 23:30:19 UTC #7

Where did the F: partition spring from as you originally wrote about C/D/E?

However,if my theories were correct then doing this should make a positive difference. Give it a try as you've nothing to lose.

steffche 2005-08-09 23:44:53 UTC #8

Oops...you're right....I actually have 4 partitions and have selected the F: partition as the Video edit one....does this make things worse....I mean having the very last partition dedicated to DVD copying?

Andrei 2005-08-10 04:14:43 UTC #9

generaly the last partition is situated at the end of the HDD that will mean that the transfer and acces time is a bit worse there. Try testing the partitions transfer speed and look at the results
(using HDtouch or nero)

TimC 2005-08-10 09:12:52 UTC #10

I think Andrei is correct. I guess he must be as this is what I've been saying anyway.
It's going to be the continual switching from the C Drive , where your OS & Apps are to the F drive. That represents the greatest possible head movement for the HD & that is BAD news.
With 1 HD the most I'd have would be 2 partitions. Maybe 40gb for the OS & 120GB for the rest & set all your working (temp) directories to the second partition along with where your final results would be.
With a decent system that you have go buy another 160GB Sata HD & run 1 partition per disk.

Gurm 2005-08-10 10:04:15 UTC #11

Partitioning is no longer a good idea under Windows. It just makes the drive work harder (seeking from one end to the other).

steffche 2005-08-10 16:03:47 UTC #12

Is it now possible to re-partition safely rather than having to re-format the HDD? Some sort of application perhaps? Maybe even a windows xp feature?

Last night it took areound 17mins to backup Cold Mountain with 1ClickDVDCopy which required around 20% compression. Is that normal...slow...fast???

chas0039 2005-08-10 17:05:22 UTC #13

If that is the entire process from reading the disc to compressing the data to burning the disc, that is great.

steffche 2005-08-10 17:09:47 UTC #14

Nahhh, thats just to read and compress and store on HDD...writing would add around 12 mins to that I suppose...maybe a little less.

Gurm 2005-08-10 18:13:27 UTC #15

Ok two answers:

Yeah 17 minutes is fine.

And... yes you can repartition on the fly, using Partition Magic.

steffche 2005-08-10 19:07:45 UTC #16

What if the partitions that I want to re-partition only contain data (ie, no system software, just documents) ? Could I use fdisk?

xtacydima 2005-08-10 21:25:59 UTC #17

they all got picked up under DMA right?