Hi Guys,
For those who are interested...
I have an (2,5") 250GB HDD in an NexStar 3 USB/esata enclosure with which I performed a launch test of OOP on three different machines to determine an optimum setup for my PA. I use PA extensively, therefore the lack of performance in my work environment (Machine 1) was hindering my productivity.
I chose OOP because of the three poor performers PAM, VLC and OOP, OOP was the one that took the longest to launch.
Machine 1 - USB 2.0:
An XP Pro HP (nc6220) 1.8GHz single core (and 2GB RAM) took 135 seconds to launch OOP, the splash screen only appearing after about 80 seconds! ZoneAlarm and AVG is used for security.
Machine 2 - USB 2.0:
An XP Pro HP (nc8430) 2.0GHz dual core (and 2 GB RAM) took 65 seconds to launch OOP the splash screen only appearing after about 50 seconds! ZoneAlarm and AVG is used for security.
Machine 3 - esata:
An Vista Asus 2.1GHz dual core (and 2 GB RAM) took 15 seconds to launch OOP the splash screen only appearing after about 7. Microsoft default software is used for security.
Report:
Now understanding that all PA are compressed and thus have to be uncompressed before being able to launch, we know that the bottleneck is the speed at which the entire file can be read/transferred for processing. Thus also explaining the apparent non-response of the application as the splash screen is only displayed at the end of the transfer/uncompress task.
It was thus a surprise to see that the dual core machine accomplished the same task in half the time as I thought the constraint would be USB 2.0 maxing out, but obviously the speed of the processor and memory had a much larger influence.
Apart from the security software, machines 2 and 3 were essentially the same and the goal was to measure the improvement that esata would be over USB 2.0 as I wasn't sure whether I was hitting the (read/transfer) performance limit of the drive/enclosure.
My conclusion is that for my next (notebook) purchase an esata port is mandatory unless someone has a different experience, pointing to the fact that it is the security software that is a major contributor to the performance equation.
Regards
Paul
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as an experiment, would it be possible, at least for machines 2 and 3, to copy the OOP folder onto the C:\ drive and time launching it from there?
In my experience, portable hard drives can't max out USB2, and certainly can't run over four times faster than it, which is what those figures are showing, so I would far more strongly suspect that it would be the security software (common to the two slow machines, different on the fast one) which is the issue.
Specifically, I have had assorted performance issues with AVG in the past and I no longer use it myself, so it would be interesting to see if that is in fact the problem.
Hi Jimbo,
You were correct!
Before I copied OOP to the C: drive I tried it on Machine 3 via USB 2.0. The result was identical to using esata. (It merely took 15 second to open).
I then uninstalled AVG on machine 1 and tried it again. OOP now takes 20 seconds to open off the USB 2.0, essentially identical to machine 3.
so the crux is that for PA there's no real benefit to getting esata.
So thank you for saving me a stack of money and much frustration with my "apparent" slow machine!
My next question is what do you use now i.s.o. AVG?
Thanks again.
Paul
at home, I use Avast! You need to register, but it is free, I've had no problems with spam / marketing / whatever from them, the product has worked fine, and so far, I've not noticed any performance problems with it.
At work, I use Sophos. Excellent performance, and excellent network central management, but somewhat expensive for a home user
avast! aswell. Been using it on Windows for a long time and has worked well and smooth
What about Comodo that includes both anti-virus and firewall? Has any one used it and what do you think about it? Thanks.
Thanks Jimbo,
I switched all my home machines to Avast. I still can't believe that I struggled along like this for about 6 months!
Cheers
Paul
Well, at least you made this thread and other were able to help you out so you troubled days are behind you.
To test you original theory a little better, I was going to suggest you decompress OpenOffice Portable so UPX compression/decompression is taken out as a factor. Then do another comparison to see how the numbers stack up compared to the compressed version as they relate to processor speed & memory.
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