Encoding times to different HDDs

fulchat · 10-18-2005, 06:56 PM

This question is more about the computer itself and how it operates. Here we go.
Im running two hard drives. C is primary with the operating system. F drive is my secondary drive which I burn my movies (including the temp files) to. Although the original programs such as Nero and Shrink originated on my C drive Ive also put them to the F drive. Im of the assumption that the program can be run from either drive seperately,which I do often, sometimes even the same program at once on each drive,burning to the respective drive. Yes I realize that the process does take a few minutes longer with two encodings at the same time but I again was under the assumption that this was because of a bottleneck due to my AMD Athlon64 3000 being only a 1.8GHz. Just fooling around today, I find that my C drive will encode and burn to the hard drive about five minutes faster than the same movie encodes and burns using the F drive. Can anyone explain why this is? I will give PC specs below.Feel free to PM me if you dont want to post.

Clarification: Movie is loaded into a Lite-on SOHD-16P9S DVD ROM.

Thanx in advance
Tod

Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939
Athlon 64 3000 1.8GHz
2GB/4x512 Crucial PC 3200 Dual Channel
ATI Radeon 9600 AIW 128 MB
Maxtor 120 HDD SATA Primary C Drive
Western Digital WD800 80 HDD SATA F Drive
2xOptorite 1603 DVDRW (Location 0) Primary ATA
(Location 1) Secondary ATA
Lite-on SOHD-16P9S (Location 0) Secondary ATA

**oldmn** · 10-18-2005, 10:09 PM

The only dif I see is the buffer on the C: is 8MEG and on the F: is 2MEG.

fulchat · 10-19-2005, 07:57 AM

Naw, cant say its that.I should have been a little clearer on the model. The WD Caviar specs( F Drive) read 8MB if we're talking about the same thing.
Weight: 1.5 lbs
Type: Hard drive - internal
Interface Type: Serial ATA-150
Form Factor: 3.5" x 1/3H
Buffer Size: 8 MB
Data Transfer Rate: 150 MBps
Capacity: 80 GB
Spindle Speed: 7200 rpm
Average Seek Time: 8.9 ms
Connector: 7 pin Serial ATA
Dimensions (WxDxH): 4 in x 5.8 in x 1 in
Manufacturer Warranty: 3 years warranty
Product Description: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD - hard drive - 80 GB - SATA-150

Seek time is different if that really means anything to encoding times. Maxtor at 5.2ms against the WD at 8.9ms.

**please** · 10-19-2005, 09:12 AM

I might guess the state of fragmentation of each HDD may have something to do with that, but 5 minutes is quite a difference when the entire operation should take ~15 minutes. Do you have them both connected to the same controller...ITE or Silicon Image?

Are you ripping the movie from the Liteon to two different HDDs at the same time, or are you ripping to one HDD, then the same movie from the same drive ripped to the other HDD, and one is 5 minutes faster than the other?

fulchat · 10-19-2005, 01:02 PM

Well, lemme say this. Just the night before I defraged both which I do on a regular basis. I seem to remember that KB/s while encoding seemed to be about 1/3 slower on the F drive. What I will do ASAP, like right now, is rip a movie and give you exact transfer rate and times. In answer to the question above, the movie is burned seperately at different times to each hard drive using the same program (Shrink) from that particular drive. Thanx for your help folks.

**leroys1000** · 10-19-2005, 03:01 PM

You may have the programs located on 2 different drives,but more than likely the programs are still buffering on the C: drive.
Which means that you are running both drives on the chain at the same time
when encoding from F: and reducing the overall bandwith of the IDE chain,
slowing down the data transfer and the encoding/recording process.

fulchat · 10-19-2005, 03:05 PM

Here is what I did.
1. Restarted the PC
2. Ran DVD Shrink from C drive.
3. Loaded a single layer 4.3 movie without encryption to the Liteon DVD- Rom.

Transfer rates started at about 5000KB/s and gradually increased to 7000KB/s.The time it took to encode and burn to the harddrive was 11 min. 31 sec.

Then I rebooted the PC and and repeated the procedure using Shrink on the F drive. Tranfer rates seemed about the same but the time was 12 min. 17 sec.

Again I rebooted and put an encrypted DVD 9 movie in. Following the same procedure as above, my times for the C drive:18 min 58 sec. F drive 20min. 41 sec. As you can see, not quite the 5 min but still longer.

Total space on C is 114GB with 72GB free
Total space on F is 74GB with 44GB free.

Yes they are both connected to same SATA controller.

Thanx

PS............ Just saw that last post. When running both at the same time I can see this but why when running seperately at different times?

**leroys1000** · 10-20-2005, 12:29 AM

Yes,because when you are running from the C: drive you are encoding,
decoding and buffering on the C: drive.
When you run on the F: drive you are probably encoding and decoding
on the F: drive,but buffering on C: which is running both drives at the same time.

fulchat · 10-20-2005, 07:53 AM

Thanx for the quick replies. The bottom line is that I will always be using the C drive because my OS resides there and also the data transfer now has a longer path (when using the F drive) my times will always be somewhat longer.

Thankyou again

10-18-2005, 06:56 PM	#1 (permalink)
fulchat Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 11 OS: XP	Encoding times to different HDDs This question is more about the computer itself and how it operates. Here we go. Im running two hard drives. C is primary with the operating system. F drive is my secondary drive which I burn my movies (including the temp files) to. Although the original programs such as Nero and Shrink originated on my C drive Ive also put them to the F drive. Im of the assumption that the program can be run from either drive seperately,which I do often, sometimes even the same program at once on each drive,burning to the respective drive. Yes I realize that the process does take a few minutes longer with two encodings at the same time but I again was under the assumption that this was because of a bottleneck due to my AMD Athlon64 3000 being only a 1.8GHz. Just fooling around today, I find that my C drive will encode and burn to the hard drive about five minutes faster than the same movie encodes and burns using the F drive. Can anyone explain why this is? I will give PC specs below.Feel free to PM me if you dont want to post. Clarification: Movie is loaded into a Lite-on SOHD-16P9S DVD ROM. Thanx in advance Tod Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939 Athlon 64 3000 1.8GHz 2GB/4x512 Crucial PC 3200 Dual Channel ATI Radeon 9600 AIW 128 MB Maxtor 120 HDD SATA Primary C Drive Western Digital WD800 80 HDD SATA F Drive 2xOptorite 1603 DVDRW (Location 0) Primary ATA (Location 1) Secondary ATA Lite-on SOHD-16P9S (Location 0) Secondary ATA

10-19-2005, 09:12 AM	#4 (permalink)
please TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 1,186 OS: WinXP SP2	I might guess the state of fragmentation of each HDD may have something to do with that, but 5 minutes is quite a difference when the entire operation should take ~15 minutes. Do you have them both connected to the same controller...ITE or Silicon Image? Are you ripping the movie from the Liteon to two different HDDs at the same time, or are you ripping to one HDD, then the same movie from the same drive ripped to the other HDD, and one is 5 minutes faster than the other? __________________ P4P800E-D:~:P4 3.0C@3.75GHz:~:Zal7000AlCu:~:OCZ4001024ELDCPER2-K@250MHz 2.5-3-3-7 WinXP SP2>2X160GB Samsung SATA ICH5R RAID1:~:2x80GB Samsung SATA Promise RAID0 ATI A-I-W X800XT~SB Audigy2 ZS~2X BenQ1620~Antec SLK3700AMB~Antec SmartPower2.0 500W

10-19-2005, 01:02 PM	#5 (permalink)
fulchat Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 11 OS: XP	Well, lemme say this. Just the night before I defraged both which I do on a regular basis. I seem to remember that KB/s while encoding seemed to be about 1/3 slower on the F drive. What I will do ASAP, like right now, is rip a movie and give you exact transfer rate and times. In answer to the question above, the movie is burned seperately at different times to each hard drive using the same program (Shrink) from that particular drive. Thanx for your help folks. Last edited by fulchat; 10-19-2005 at 01:06 PM.

10-19-2005, 03:05 PM	#7 (permalink)
fulchat Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 11 OS: XP	Here is what I did. 1. Restarted the PC 2. Ran DVD Shrink from C drive. 3. Loaded a single layer 4.3 movie without encryption to the Liteon DVD- Rom. Transfer rates started at about 5000KB/s and gradually increased to 7000KB/s.The time it took to encode and burn to the harddrive was 11 min. 31 sec. Then I rebooted the PC and and repeated the procedure using Shrink on the F drive. Tranfer rates seemed about the same but the time was 12 min. 17 sec. Again I rebooted and put an encrypted DVD 9 movie in. Following the same procedure as above, my times for the C drive:18 min 58 sec. F drive 20min. 41 sec. As you can see, not quite the 5 min but still longer. Total space on C is 114GB with 72GB free Total space on F is 74GB with 44GB free. Yes they are both connected to same SATA controller. Thanx PS............ Just saw that last post. When running both at the same time I can see this but why when running seperately at different times? Last edited by fulchat; 10-19-2005 at 03:09 PM.

10-18-2005, 10:09 PM	#2 (permalink)
oldmn TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Gig Harbor Wa Posts: 2,150 OS: XP Pro SP3 X 3 My System	The only dif I see is the buffer on the C: is 8MEG and on the F: is 2MEG.

10-19-2005, 07:57 AM	#3 (permalink)
fulchat Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 11 OS: XP	Naw, cant say its that.I should have been a little clearer on the model. The WD Caviar specs( F Drive) read 8MB if we're talking about the same thing. Weight: 1.5 lbs Type: Hard drive - internal Interface Type: Serial ATA-150 Form Factor: 3.5" x 1/3H Buffer Size: 8 MB Data Transfer Rate: 150 MBps Capacity: 80 GB Spindle Speed: 7200 rpm Average Seek Time: 8.9 ms Connector: 7 pin Serial ATA Dimensions (WxDxH): 4 in x 5.8 in x 1 in Manufacturer Warranty: 3 years warranty Product Description: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD - hard drive - 80 GB - SATA-150 Seek time is different if that really means anything to encoding times. Maxtor at 5.2ms against the WD at 8.9ms.

10-19-2005, 03:01 PM	#6 (permalink)
leroys1000 Tech Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 770 OS: Windows XP	You may have the programs located on 2 different drives,but more than likely the programs are still buffering on the C: drive. Which means that you are running both drives on the chain at the same time when encoding from F: and reducing the overall bandwith of the IDE chain, slowing down the data transfer and the encoding/recording process.

10-20-2005, 12:29 AM	#8 (permalink)
leroys1000 Tech Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 770 OS: Windows XP	Yes,because when you are running from the C: drive you are encoding, decoding and buffering on the C: drive. When you run on the F: drive you are probably encoding and decoding on the F: drive,but buffering on C: which is running both drives at the same time.

10-20-2005, 07:53 AM	#9 (permalink)
fulchat Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 11 OS: XP	Thanx for the quick replies. The bottom line is that I will always be using the C drive because my OS resides there and also the data transfer now has a longer path (when using the F drive) my times will always be somewhat longer. Thankyou again