I agree with maybe not noticing but then again my opinion can be a bit biased in this arena as I do notice a difference but some times I forget that everything I have is high end and if you have a drive with 8MB of cache the differnce is noticed and evident in benchmarks. I have no drives currntly with less than 8MB of cache so I am unable to present any comparison.

True Weaver. A good time indeed.

All my drives are with 8MB cache too , Rob. The speed difference can show in a benchmark , but then again everyday use can't really be benchmarked.

I speak only the facts George. If a benchmark shows it then the difference is there. Some may not notice but when doing things such as large file transfers it can be noticed or when loading large programs. Its the same riding down the road in a car at 55MPH with two different cars Once your up to speed you cant tell whether you car has 100HP or 500HP but punch the accelerator and you have no doubt which is which.

~Robrowe~ wrote:

I speak only the facts George. If a benchmark shows it then the difference is there. Some may not notice but when doing things such as large file transfers it can be noticed or when loading large programs. Its the same riding down the road in a car at 55MPH with two different cars Once your up to speed you cant tell whether you car has 100HP or 500HP but punch the accelerator and you have no doubt which is which.

Very good comparison, Rob. I am riding in the 500 hp car.

Huntnsinme wrote:

~Robrowe~ wrote: I speak only the facts George. If a benchmark shows it then the difference is there. Some may not notice but when doing things such as large file transfers it can be noticed or when loading large programs. Its the same riding down the road in a car at 55MPH with two different cars Once your up to speed you cant tell whether you car has 100HP or 500HP but punch the accelerator and you have no doubt which is which. Very good comparison, Rob. I am riding in the 500 hp car.

It really doesn't matter to me cause my wife won't let me drive over 55MPH....all she does is the whole trip.

LOL

~Robrowe~ wrote:

I speak only the facts George. If a benchmark shows it then the difference is there. Some may not notice but when doing things such as large file transfers it can be noticed or when loading large programs. Its the same riding down the road in a car at 55MPH with two different cars Once your up to speed you cant tell whether you car has 100HP or 500HP but punch the accelerator and you have no doubt which is which.

Rob , I didn't say it doesn't make a difference. It does make a difference and that is why I always suggest members to have optical drives in one IDE channel and HDs on the other. I just said that the difference might not be noticeable in everyday use and after that I could add that " the speed difference might not be noticeable in everyday use unless one performs large file transfers or performs extend usage of his HDs" because that stands also true.
I have one question though. What is the average speed of a HD when you transfer a file large as 1GB. I'd be supprised if it went over 40MB/sec.

Has anyone tried using a Virtual Drive as a mediator? Will this extra step improve transfer rates? I don't know, haven't tried it or even know if it is possible to do?

I just ran the sandra file system bench on a 250GB WD ATA133/8MB cache 7200rpm with two setups setup one is the drive on IDE0 all by its lonesome and the second is the same drive with a 52X Sony CDROM attached to IDE0 as slave, 59% decrease.


#1 42520kB/s

#2 17480kB/s