Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Hardware degradation

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Kissel" <jlk@???>
To: "Hampshire LUG Discussion List" <hampshire@???>
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 10:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Hardware degradation


>
>
> Rob Malpass wrote:
>> Hi all
>>
>> To what extent is a PC as fast now as it was when first bought?
>
> Wow! What an apples and oranges question.
>
>>
>> As we know, hard disks get fragmented over time. I'm honestly not sure
>> how much this affects Linux as much as Windows or any other OS, but the
>> general thinking is that if you defragment a slow Windows filesystem,
>> performance will improve. I've personally never seen it improve Windows
>> that much - but it does have some effect.
>
> Although there are some disk defragmenters for Linux/Unix, they never have
> enjoyed much popularity. Probably due to the fact that most modern
> Linux/Unix file systems are good as housekeeping and keep fragmentation to
> a minimum.
>
> Having said that, if your application is very disk I/O intensive, a
> new/clean disk may improve performance.
>
>>
>> Periodially, it's also a good idea to do a clean reinstall of a Windows
>> partition. But my question is - suppose you replace your primary HDD
>> with a brand new one in a machine that's say 2 years old and otherwise
>> unchanged- will it (the machine overall) be as fast as it was when new -
>> or can I expect the CPU, the RAM etc to have degraded?
>
> The periodically re-install of Windows use to be due to DLL "rot". A
> re-install cleared up this problem, but my experience with this is ancient
> history on Win95. I can't comment on the more "modern" versions of MS-OS
> as I don't use them.
>
> I new HDD, could be faster. Better and more cache, higher rotational
> rates, faster seek times. If you replace the HDD with exactly the same
> spec drive, I wouldn't expect to see any change in performance.
>
> Now for a few apples and oranges..... Hardware doesn't slow down but you
> could be comparing 2 year old software with today's software. Generally
> current software will be bigger, more resource hungry, and yes, slower.
> Try comparing Fedora FC3 with the current FC7 on the same hardware. I
> would suspect your perception will be FC7 is slower than FC3.
>>

Sorry - should have made myself clearer. Say I was running XP ( first
installed around Christmas 2004), if I were to swap HDDs for a brand new one
and install XP from the same CD I installed in Christmas 2004 (to the brand
new HDD) - will it be as fast as it was(assuming I install the same
applications I installed at Christmas 2004)?

Cheers
Rob