Increasing Computer Speed

Tips to improve PC performance in Windows

• How can I increase my PC speed?

• How to boost CPU speed?

• What makes my PC run faster?

• How do I fix my slow computer?

• Will SSD make PC faster?

• How to increase RAM?

• How to free RAM?

An important factor in measuring overall system performance is the speed at which the computer's disk drives operate. Measures of drive performance generally are applied to the computer's hard disk but also can be applied to other types of drives.

When evaluating the performance of common storage devices, you need to be aware of two common measures: the average access time and the data transfer rate. For random-access devices (all the storage devices discussed, with the exception of magnetic tapes and solid-state devices), you generally want a low access time and a high data transfer rate.

Because tape drives are always slower than other types of storage devices, convenience and capacity are their best measures of performance. Solid-state devices typically access and transfer data much more rapidly than other types of storage devices so, again, convenience and capacity are usually your greatest concern when evaluating them.

These performance factors can be important when you are buying a new computer or upgrading your current system. You want to make sure that your drives operate at a speed that complements your processor's capabilities. You also want to make sure that the drive uses an interface that is compatible with any other devices you may add to the computer.

New Horizons Computer Learning Center

New Horizons Computer Learning Center

• Who is the founder of New Horizons Computer Learning Center?

• What is the New Horizon cyber security course?

• What does the company New Horizons do?

• Does New Horizons cost money?

• How much money did New Horizons make?

• Was New Horizons a success?

• Is New Horizons still working?

• How old is New Horizons?

For a storage device, average access time (or seek time) is the amount of time the device takes to move its read or read/write heads to any spot on the medium. It is important that the measurement be an average because access times can vary greatly, depending on how far the heads need to move. To measure the access time of a drive effectively, you must test many reads of randomly chosen sec tors-a method that approximates the actual read instructions a disk drive would receive under normal circumstances.

Average access time is an important measure of performance for storage de vices and memory. Even though memory chips have no moving read/write head, it is still critical to know how fast a memory system can locate a piece of data on a chip. For storage devices, access times are measured in milliseconds (ms), or one-thousandths of a second. For memory devices, access times are measured in nanoseconds (ns), or one-billionths of a second.

In a disk drive, access time depends on a combination of two factors: the speed ar which a disk spins (revolutions per minute, or rpm) and the time it takes to move the heads from one track to another. The maximum access time for diskettes, as you learned in the previous lesson, is 0.2 sec ond, or 200 milliseconds. The average access time is about one half the maximum, or 100 milliseconds.

Average access times for hard drives can vary, but most good drives work at rates of 6 to 12 milliseconds, many times faster than diskette drives. Some very-high- performance hard disks have access times as fast as four or five milliseconds.

At 80 to 800 ms, access times for CD-ROM drives tend to be quite slow by hard disk standards, but tape drives of fir the longest average access times of any storage device. Depending on the type of drive and format used, tape drives can take from a few seconds to a few minutes to find a specific piece of data on the tape's surface.

The easiest way to determine the average access time for a device is to check the manufacturer's specifications. You should be able to find the specifications for a device in its packaging or documentation, or you may be able to get them from the manufacturer's Web site. Popular computer-related magazines such as PC Magazine, Computer Shopper, and others-regularly test new drives to measure various performance factors.

Data Transfer Rate ( DTR )

• How fast can a computer transfer data?

• What is the speed of data transmission in a computer?

• What is the Mbps data transfer rate?

• What is PC USB transfer speed?

• How fast is USB 3.0 transfer rate?

• How fast is USB 2.0 transfer rate?

• How fast is USB 3.1 transfer rate?

• Which USB is fastest?

• What is the speed of USB 2.0 and 3.0 transfer?

The other important statistic for measuring drive performance is the speed at which it can transfer data-that is, the amount of time it takes for one device to send data to another device. Speeds are expressed as a rate, or as some amount of data per unit of time. When measuring any device's data transfer rare (also called throughput), time is measured in seconds, but units of data may be measured in bytes, KB, MB, or GB. illustrates data transfer rate.

As is the case with access times, data transfer rates can vary greatly from one device to another. Speeds for hard disks are generally high, from about 15 MBps for low-end home systems to 80 MBps and higher for the faster drives designed for high-performance workstations and servers. When buying a hard disk, the data transfer rate is at least as important a factor as the access time. CD-ROMs and diskettes are the slowest storage devices. CD-ROMs range

from 300 KBps for a double-speed player to 900 KBps for a 6x drive, to even higher speeds, with the data transfer rate corresponding to the drive's speed. Dis- kette drives average about 45 KBps. Removable hard disks range from about 1.25 MBps up into the hard disk range Some drive manufacturers and dealers advertise their drives' data transfer rates in units of megabytes per second (MBps); others express them in megabits per second (Mbps). When shopping, note if the rate specified is "MBps" or "Mbps."

Optimizing Disk Performance

How to perform Windows 10 disk optimization

• What is disk performance Optimization?

• Does optimizing drives increase performance?

• How do I optimize my disk performance?

• Is it safe to optimize HDD?

• Will defragmenting speed up computer?

• Is Optimizing the same as defragmenting?

• How long should disk optimization take?

• Is it OK to optimize SSD?

• Does defragging increase FPS?

Over time, a PC's performance can slow down. This is especially true with older systems, but even newer PCs can suffer from occasional performance downturns The computer may act sluggish in general or slow down. when performing specific tasks such as loading or saving documents.

PC slows down in this manner, some hard-disk maintenance may fix the problem. Any PC that gets used a lot should get routine disk maintenance, or disk optimization. Using your operating system's built-in tools or other utilities, you can keep your computer's hard disk (or any other magnetic disk) running the best it can. 

Cleaning Up Unneeded Files

Free up drive space in Windows

• What does clean up files mean?

• How do I clean up Storage files?

• Will clean up delete files?

• Is it safe to delete unnecessary files?

• How do I clean up my phone?

• Is it safe to delete all files in Disk Cleanup?

If your system has been in use for a while (even just a few months), hundreds of unneeded files may be cluttering up your hard disk. Windows accumulates all sorts of files during normal operations. Some of these files are meant to be stored only temporarily, but Windows does not always clean them out. If you ever shut down your computer improperly, Windows does not have a chance to delete these files, and they will stay put until you clear them out yourself. These files can really slow down your system because the hard disk has to deal with the unneeded files when looking for data or looking for space to store new files.

These files, called temporary (temp) ales, are used by Windows to store various versions of documents in progress, files being sent to the printer, automatic backup files, and more. Windows usually stores these files with the file-name extension tmp in various locations on your disk. A hard disk also can get cluttered up by temporary Internet files, which are saved by your Web browser. Newer versions of Windows feature a built-in utility called Disk Cleanup . Disk Cleanup and other disk-cleaning utilities can quickly find temporary files and remove them from your disk. The process takes only a few minutes and can free hundreds of megabytes of wasted space on an average hard disk. Most computer users should clean the temporary files off their hard disks at least once a week.

If your hard disk contains programs that you do not plan to use, you can remove them-a process called union Starline. To remove a program, start by checking its group in the Programs menu. If you see an Uninstall option, click it, and the program will uninstall itself. If you use a recent version of Windows, you also can use its Add or Remove Programs utility. There are a number of commercial software products that can uninstall programs from your system, too. Removing unneeded programs can improve your computer's performance.

Scanning a Disk for Errors

How to Use CHKDSK to Repair & Fix Windows Hard Drives

• How do I know if my disk has errors?

• How do I run CHKDSK to repair disk errors?

• How do I scan a specific disk?

• What is scandisk or CHKDSK?

• Will CHKDSK fix corrupt files?

• How do I fix a corrupted hard drive?

• Which is better SFC or CHKDSK?

• How do I scan Windows for errors?

Another way to optimize disk performance is to scan the disk for errors, fix the errors, and possibly recover data that has been lost or corrupted because of a disk error. A disk error can be a bad spot on the disk's physical surface, or it can be a piece of data that cannot be accounted for in the FAT. Scanning a disk can be a time-consuming process, but if the disk has errors, scanning may be able to fix problems and improve perveance.

Several (but not all) versions of Windows have a built-in diskseanning utility, but you also can buy very sophisticated disk scanners.

Defragmenting a Disk

How to defrag your hard drive

• Is it safe to defragment disk?

• Does defragging help disk usage?

• Does defragmenting delete files?

• What is pass in disk defragmentation?

• What is the purpose of defragmenting?

• Why is disk defragmentation used?

• How many pass in disk defragment?

• How does defragmentation software work?

• How to defrag a PC?

• Does defrag make computer faster?

• Should I defrag or clean up first?

On the surface of a magnetic disk, fragmentation occurs when a file is stored in noncontiguous sectors on the disk's surface. In other words, pieces of files become scattered around on the disk. As you create, modify, copy, and delete files (and install and uninstall programs) over time, many files can become frag- mented. Although your operating system keeps track of each fragment, a greatly fragmented disk can slow system performance because it can take longer to find and load all the pieces of files as they are needed by an application.

Windows features a built-in defragmentation utility, called Disk Defragmenter . You can use this utility-or one of several commercial utilities to ensure that your files are stored as efficiently as possible on the disk. If your disk has never been defragmented before, you may notice a significant performance improvement after running this type of utility. (It is usually recommended that you run a disk-scanning utility before defragmenting the disk.) 

File Compression

Free Online File Compressor

• What is compression of files?

• What is compression and its types?

• What is file system compression?

• What is the compression method of a file?

• Why is file compression used?

• What are the two types of file compression?

• What is an example of file compression?

• What is file compression and its advantages?

• What is an example of a file compression format?

Even with the large storage devices available, many users still find themselves pushing the limits of their computer's storage capacity. One solution to this storage problem, be- sides upgrading to larger devices, is to compress data, File compression, or data compression, is the technology for shrinking the size of a file so it takes up less space on the disk. This frees up space for more data and programs to reside on the disk.

Compressing files will not necessarily improve a disk's performance; that is, compressing files will not reduce a disk's access time. How- ever, file compression can enable you to store more data on a disk, effectively increasing the disk's capacity.

Entire hard disks, floppy disks, or individual files can be compressed by as much as a 3:1 ratio (so that 300 MB of data fill only 100 MB of space, for in- stance). File compression is performed by software that squeezes data into smaller chunks by removing information that is not vital to the file or data. Some favorite compression programs for PCs include PKZIP and WinZip. StuffIT is a favorite compression utility among Macintosh enthusiasts.

Most file-compression utilities are useful for compressing one or more files to reduce their storage requirements. When you use a utility like WinZip, the program actually shrinks the selected files and then saves them together in- side a new file, with its own name. The resulting file is called an archive file because it stores the compressed files inside it. Archive files are commonly used for exactly that purpose-archiving unneeded data files. 

shows an example of a file-compression utility at work. Depending on the circumstances (the compression software used, the data file's native program, and other factors), the user may need to extract the compressed files manually (that is, return them to their uncompressed state) before using them. Most file compression utilities enable the user to create self-extracting archive files-files that can extract themselves automatically.

Utilities such as WinZip, PKZIP, and StuffIT generally are not used to com- press the contents of an entire hard disk. Because such files must be expanded manually, a lot of effort would be required to compress a disk's contents, select and expand files when you want to use them, and then recompress them. For this reason, programs such as DriveSpace are helpful. (DriveSpace is built into some versions of Windows, and you can purchase commercial utilities that perform full- disk compression. Windows XP includes its own utility for compressing disks.)

Drive Interface Standards

Definition of hard disk interfaces - PCMag

• What is the most common drive interface?

• What are the disk interface standard families?

• What are standard interfaces for the connection of storage devices?

• What is the interface on a harddrive?

• Is SATA a drive interface?

• What interface is SSD?

• What standard interface means?

• What is a standard data interface?

• What is a SCSI hard drive?

Another important factor in determining how quickly a drive can read and write data is the type of controller that the drive uses. Just as a video monitor requires a controller to act as an interface between the CPU and the display screen, storage devices also need a controller to act as an intermediary between the drive and the CPU. A disk controller connects the disk drive to the computer's bus, acting as an interface between the two and enabling the drive to exchange data with other devices.

Currently, most personal computers use one of two drive-interface standards for built-in disk drives: EIDE or SCSI. A lot of confusion surrounds these two drive-interface standards because competing developers have introduced many variations of and names for these technologies. If you buy a PC today, it will al- most certainly feature one of these two drive interfaces. If you plan to purchase a drive for an existing PC, be sure that the new drive is compatible with the com- puter's drive interface.

Two other types of interface-Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 (also known as FireWire)-make it possible to attach additional disk drives and other devices to a computer. These interfaces are not specifically drive-interface standards, because they are open and flexible enough to accommodate many kinds of devicthe

Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE)

What is Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE)?

• What is integrated drive electronics in computer?

• What is the purpose of EIDE?

• What is the function of EIDE cable?

• What is enhanced IDE?

• What is IDE used in electronic industry?

• What is IDE in computers?

• What is an IDE with example?

• What are the three types of IDE?

• What is the full form of IDE?

Enhanced integrated drive electronics (EIDE) is an improved version of an older drive-interface standard, called integrated drive electronics (IDE). While the IDE standard still exists and is the basis for several drive interfaces, the standard is known by many different names, and EIDE is widely regarded as the catchall term for drive interfaces based on this standard.

As a result, most new computer sys- tems use the EIDE drive-interface stan- dard, or one like it. The latest version of EIDE supports data transfer rates of 66 MBps. The EIDE standard's variants go by names such as Fast IDE, ATA, Fast ATA, ATA-2, ATA-3, ATA-4, Ultra ATA, and ATA66. Each offers somewhat different features and performance. For ex ample, some EIDE disk controllers can host as many as four separate hard disks, providing access to more than 500 GB of data on a single system.

Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)

What is SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)?

• What is a small computer system interface used for?

• Is SCSI still being used?

• Why is SCSI needed?

• What is the SCSI interface configuration?

• What is an example of SCSI?

• How many types of SCSI are there?

• What type of storage is SCSI?

• How to connect SCSI?

The history of the small computer system interface (SCSI) goes back to the 1970s. SCSI was originally developed as a way to connect third-party peripheral devices to mainframe computers-specifically, IBM mainframe computers. SCSI went through many transformations before the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) established a definition for the interface in 1986. Since then, the definition of SCSI has continued to evolve into SCSI-2, Wide SCSI, Fast SCSI, Fast Wide SCSI, Ultra SCSI, SCSI-3 (also known as Ultra-Wide SCSI), Ultra 2 SCSI, and Wide Ultra 2 SCSI.

SCSI allows even higher data transfer rates than are possible with EIDE. The Wide Ultra 2 SCSI interface, for example, supports a data transfer rate of 80 MBps. Because of its speed, flexibility, and high throughput rates, the SCSI drive interface standard is usually found in higher-end business systems, servers, and workstations.

USB and FireWire

Difference Between USB and FireWire

• What's the difference between USB and FireWire?

• What is FireWire used for?

• Can FireWire work with USB?

• Did USB replace FireWire?

• Why is FireWire not used?

• What are the advantages of FireWire?

• What is the speed of FireWire?

• Is USB 3.0 faster than FireWire 400?

• Do they still use FireWire?

• Is USB 2 faster than FireWire 400?

• Can I use FireWire to USB C?

• Does Apple use FireWire?

As you learned in Chapter 4, "Processing Data," many mar newer computers feature Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interfaces. All sorts of peripherals can be attached to a computer through a USB or FireWire port, including storage devices.

Although USB and FireWire are not considered to be drive interfaces per se (they support many types of devices), they support high data transfer rates and provide connections that allow the host computer to control an external storage device just as if it were an internal one.

Like SCSI, USB and FireWire allow users to connect many peripherals at the same time. If your computer needs extra storage, this means you can simply purchase additional hard drives as you need them and connect them to your PC via a USB or FireWire connection.

Summary (Increasing Computer Speed )

• In storage devices, the average access time is the time it takes a read/write head to move to a spot on the storage medium.

• Diskette drives offer an average access time of 100 milliseconds. Hard drives are many times faster

• Tape drives provide the slowest average access times of all magnetic storage devices, optical devices are also much slower than hard disks.

• The data transfer rate is a measure of how long it takes a given amount of data to travel from one device to another. Hard disks offer the fastest data transfer rates of any storage device.

• You can optimize the performance of a PC's hard disk by cleaning off unneeded files, scanning the disk for errors, and defragmenting the disk.

• File compression technology is used to shrink the size of files so that they take up less disk space

• By using compression utilities, you can shrink multiple files into a single archive file. Some utilities enable you to com press the entire contents of a hard disk

• Two drive-interface standards are commonly used today: EIDE and SCSI

• Many storage devices can be connected to a PC's USB or FireWire port.