Hard Drive to Hard Drive File Copying
We copied two large files: a 3.6GB zip file and a 3.84GB ISO file from the second 80GB "I" partition on the Windows disk to the 150GB "D" drive on the second hard drive. Secondly, we copied 400 small jpeg files (600MB of data) in the same way.
We found there to be virtually no difference between the large file copy testing, although the many small file copying was noticeably faster, even over such a short test.
USB Copy Testing
We copied the same 3.6GB zip file from the separate "D" drive over USB 2.0 to an Icy Box with a SATA hard drive installed. This process was then reversed to test the speed both ways.
USB file copying was also slightly faster in Windows Vista SP1 too – while the actual transfer speed was the same ~33MB/s, we found SP1 starts and finishes the transfer much quicker. The time difference for copying back from USB drive to HDD was virtually identical though.
Network Copy Testing
Again, we copied the same two large files for our network tests: a 3.6GB zip file and a 3.84GB ISO file from the 150GB "D" drive to the network drive over Gigabit Ethernet connected via a CAT5e crossover cable. Both network connections were manually assigned an IP and subnet. Secondly, we copied 400 small jpeg files (600MB of data) in the same way and finally we repeated the process by copying back from the network disk to the system "D" drive.
I think it’s fair to say that the network transfer testing was quite significantly ‘different’ to our other file copy tests – both non-SP1 and SP1 transfer times were very consistent, but SP1 adds nearly a minute and a half onto the transfer from the Vista system to a network drive. However, pulling data from the network drive cuts a massive chunk of time off the transfer. The performance here was certainly noticeably quicker in starting and ending the transfer, in addition to the increased transfer speed.
In much the same way, small file transfer performance reflects the large file transfer test above, although the performance deficit in copying to the network drive is greatly reduced. Again, pulling data from the network drive to the local machine is vastly quicker.
Author: Richard Swinburne
Published: 26th March 2008
To be continued...
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