What is the factor that affects file transfer speeds between HDDs?

[Ravanx]

What is the factor that affects file transfer speeds between HDDs?
The transfer speed is slower when I'm transferring a large file from one hard drive to another as compared to when I'm transferring the same file from the latter to the former.

 

[Dixon Butz]

Different brand of hard drives?
Different read and write speeds will do that.

 

[freaky88]

i heard ide harddrives are faster on everything then SATA and etc

 

[Dixon Butz]

i heard ide harddrives are faster on everything then SATA and etc

you heard wrong lol

 

[freaky88]

well...which hdd is faster?

 

[Dixon Butz]

SATA is much faster.

Read this for starters

http://techreport.com/articles.x/19330

 

[TVeblen]

Fragmentation.

I transfer movies recorded by capture card. When there are lots of mpg's recorded they get badly fragmented. These transfers go half as fast as it does when I am transferring an intact, contiguous file.

 

[Kirsch]

I dont think you guys quite understand the OP's question

When the OP transfers a file from one HDD to another, its fast
When the OP transfers THE SAME FILE between the SAME HDDs (just the other way around), its slow

I believe it depends on the RECEIVING HDD's health (whether the HDD itself is fragmented, old, slow write speed, etc)

 

[Ravanx]

What is the factor that affects file transfer speeds between HDDs?
The transfer speed is slower when I'm transferring a large file from one hard drive to another as compared to when I'm transferring the same file from the latter to the former.

I dont think you guys quite understand the OP's question

When the OP transfers a file from one HDD to another, its fast
When the OP transfers THE SAME FILE between the SAME HDDs (just the other way around), its slow

I believe it depends on the RECEIVING HDD's health (whether the HDD itself is fragmented, old, slow write speed, etc)

But what if both are equally fragmented:
The former hard drive is a WD Caviar Black.
The latter hard drive is a WD Caviar Green.
Black to Green slower than Green to Black.
Why is this so?

 

[madtownidiot]

the limiting factor is write speed.. even an empty HDD can be read faster than it can be written to.

 

[Ravanx]

Is the write speed of the receiving hdd that limiting factor or the write speed of the sending hdd?

And how does the 32MB or 64MB of cache on the hdd affect it?

 

[madtownidiot]

the write speed of the receiving hdd is the usually the limiting factor in large file transfers between HDDs with the same interface (sata, pata, IDE ..etc) and rpm. Cache size is a factor in the read/write speeds, acts as a buffer to reduce the number of reads/writes

 

[Ravanx]

Thanks.

What about RPM? Does it come into play to a greater effect than write speed?

 

[madtownidiot]

Faster spinning HDDs as a rule will read/write faster. Most desktop HDDs under 1GB are 7200 rpm. A 1gb caviar green spins @ 5400 rpm whereas a caviar black runs at 7200 rpm, and that's the main reason your caviar green can't be written to as quickly as your other HDD.

 

[Pusspa]

you are all wrong, i know for a fact the thing that defines the speed is pixie dust.

 

[madtownidiot]

lmao... thread solved

 

[Kirsch]

I believe it depends on the RECEIVING HDD's health (whether the HDD itself is fragmented, old, slow write speed, etc)

Thanks madtownidiot.. I guess I could have written my answer better

Good to know I was correct also

 

[madtownidiot]

I believe it depends on the RECEIVING HDD's health (whether the HDD itself is fragmented, old, slow write speed, etc)

Thanks madtownidiot.. I guess I could have written my answer better

Good to know I was correct also

You're welcome..
I've had to explain the same thing quite a few times over the years.. and in reality, fragmentation is not much of an issue unless the gaps between the fragments are huge and the fragments themselves are numerous and non-sequential. The typical linux system partition for example, would look horribly fragmented to a windows based defragmenter if windows could recognize the ext file system, but 64 bit ubuntu (gnome, lucid edition 10.4 to be specific) has approximately the same system load as windows xp and runs much more quickly and efficiently simply because the files are not in contiguous blocks on the HDD