Sorry Paul, Not being quite clear here. The reason the speed of the boot drive is so critical is due to the necessity for VM (windows page file), this can be cut down to a very small file ( 2 or so Mb) but windows runs far smoother if you allow it to manage the size automatically. By mixing drive types, windows has to boot from IDE, hence you are forcing it to use the slower drive for VM. Theoretically, it is possible to set VM entirely on an selected drive, but in my experience, the boot drive is still being used to some extent. You can perhaps update me, but in my Mac days (upto 8.6) it was possible to turn off VM entirely hence speed difference between Mac and PC (I experimented with turning off Windows VM then too and found that my PC was just as quick as the Mac for opening files etc with the VM turned off, but much slower in 'normal' config). Has this situation changed with the advent of OS X? Perhaps this could explain the lack of a speed gap now?
best, Nick WB > > Thank you for the clarification Nick. So if I've understood > correctly, its > only the VM issue that's causing the problem, therefore on my > Mac it isn't a > problem. Seems a bit sad for the Windows operating system > though. Is this > the same on all versions? Even XP? If so, surely many Windows > users could be > loosing out big time on Hard Drive access times (we're > obviously not talking > processor speeds here, just in case any one's wondering :-) > > My experience with HD access times is only on the Mac > platform, but with a > succession of various models. The difference between my > Desktop machine and > my Powerbooks is vast. Also between older Desktops and the > 36Gb Ultra 160 > and the 120Gb ATA raid. So I'm very surprised that this issue > has not come > up before for windows users. > > regards Paul =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
