Thursday, December 22, 2005

Performance Advantages of Large Caches for Mobile HDDs Investigated. Importance of Large Caches for HDDs Explained

8:07 pm | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Designing hardware components for mobile computers is always a compromise. When performance is a first place priority, battery life as well as weight of the notebook, will surely be sacrificed for higher overall speed. However, there are measures that may not affect battery life dramatically, but boost performance substantially. A way to increase speed of hard disk drives (HDD), besides boosting rotation speed is to install large caches.

Because of the requirements for lower heat dissipation and power consumption, HDDs for notebook PCs are usually spinning at 4300rpm or 5400rpm, by contrast, desktop hard drives feature 7200rpm or even 10000rpm motors. In order to compensate performance loss due to lower spinning speeds, manufacturers install larger HDD caches.

Phoronix web-site has carried out an investigation of performance dependence from HDD cache size. The author put Hitachi’s Travelstar HTS541080G9AT00 2.5” notebook hard drive with 8MB of cache against Toshiba’s Slim MK1032GAX with 16MB cache onboard. Both HDDs boast with similar specifications such as 5400rpm, ATA-6 interface, 5.5ms average latency, and 12ms average seek time. 

“The benefits we have seen today are certainly more distinguishable than what we had seen in the late 1990’s with 512k and 1024k ATA drive cache variations. Keep in mind, both hard drives were not exactly identical when it comes to the control parts but excluding the cache size and storage capacity, their seek times and remaining features were near identical although provided by different manufacturers,” the conclusion reads.

This testing had been carried out on Lenovo ThinkPad R52 notebook, powered by Intel Pentium M 750 microprocessor operating at 1.86GHz, accompanied by 512MB PC2-4200 (533MHz) DDR2 memory and ATI Mobility RADEON X300 64MB graphics chip.  

“Although there was not much variation between the two drives in some of the benchmarks, when it came to intensive Iozone and Disk Wriggler tests, the true capabilities of a 16MB cache had definitely shined. Those not looking for the disadvantages of increasing the RPM of their mobile hard drive, a greater cache size on a lower speed drive is certainly another worthy investment for users frequently away from their desktop while demanding speed,” concludes Phoronix. 

• Phoronix: Mobile HDD Cache Comparison.

Corsair Educates Computer Enthusiasts. Corsair Publishes Guide for PC Assembly

4:21 pm | Anton Shilov

Corsair Memory, a leading maker of high-performance memory modules, is gearing up to launch its web-site for system builders who do not to have enough experience to build their computers without assistance.

“[We are] developing tools to make it easier for ‘normal’ users to become enthusiasts. We have just launched one of the key components of this,” a spokesperson with Corsair told X-bit labs.

The market of personal computers in general and high-end PCs in particular has grown tremendously in the last decade. The reason for that is improved performance of hardware and availability of software that takes advantage of it. While makers of high-performance computer components already take advantage of increased demand towards powerful hardware, some of them desire to sell more and in a bid to do that they even decide to educate and “grow up” computer enthusiasts.

Corsair has posted a build log that documents assembling of a high-performance gaming PC, from component selection through overclocking. The guide is intended for those who had already chosen components for their computers, but do not know how to assemble a PC and install operating system. The guide includes over high-quality 200 detailed photos as well as descriptions for virtually each of them.

Next time Corsair Memory will post a guide how to build a home theater PC (HTPC).

“The idea here is that we help convince users who are considering building a new system, and are nervous about it, to go ahead and take the plunge,” the representative said.

More sophisticated enthusiasts will may also be interested in checking the guide out and, perhaps, even give a feedback, the company believes. The current guide is the first one and going forward Corsair Memory said it would post additional guides in future.

• Corsair System Build Reports: Building a High Performance Gaming Box.

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