Comments for Does accessing my computer's hard disk over the network impact the computer's performance?

Comment from Nicholas Gimbrone on 2009-01-03

2009-01-03T17:04:52Z

Disk I/O is a common thread here, and disks are (still) pretty slow. The other common thread is the memory consumed, remember, most operating systems like to use memory caching of recently read documents, as well as needing to do simple buffering of the disk and network I/O (if nothing else). Both of these effects can lead to an interaction between the needs of the network file access and other processes (such as DVD burning).

]]>

A comment on: Does accessing my computer's hard disk over the network impact the computer's performance?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Chris on 2009-01-02

2009-01-03T07:43:52Z

I think we need a refresh on the job of the processor.. When moving a file, a processor's job is to transfer the bits (0's and 1's) of data from the hard drive to the output (your nic), so you are in fact, using all of the data bus to transfer data from your hard drive to your CPU's cache, which then calculations are done in RAM to create the data packet, back to the CPU, then to your output card. Think of it as a map with your CPU in the middle as it is the component that transfers data and does calculations.

Now, where you see the burden greatly lowered when copying/accessing a file over the network vs on the source machine is the GUI calculations. For example, when you double click a Word Document on the source machine, your CPU must load the interface you see on the monitor as well as access the data in the actual document. What happens? You are not just loading the data in the document to the CPU, rather, you are loading the data PLUS extra information so you can view it on the same machine. You will quickly bottleneck as these types of softwares are much more CPU oriented (lots of calculations that require access to RAM as well).

Now, when you access the file over the network, you are only moving the actual data in the document to the CPU and then executing the Word Program on the remote machine. The result -- you can save up to 80% of the load on the CPU of the source machine if you run the file remotely, but you will use the same amount of CPU load on the remote machine. More work overall, but less work on the source machine. This is exactly what you would want to do if you are running a CPU intensive program on the source machine like encoding a video.

]]>

A comment on: Does accessing my computer's hard disk over the network impact the computer's performance?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Richard on 2009-01-02

2009-01-03T05:11:42Z

Even the Newest CD/DVD burning applications still suggest in the "Help File" that:
a) the disk be defragmented before attempting the burn
b) the burning application be the sole application running while a CD/DVD is being burned
c) turn off any anti-virus software's "On-Access" scanner or define ignore rules for the types of files being burned ie .wav .mp3 .wma audio files can be safely ignored by the "On-Access" scanner

I also myself suggest that all desktop PC's have more than one HDD installed, and that all burning be done from copies of files on the second disk just in case you or your system decides to do something else with the C:\ drive
ie system restore decides that it's time to do the restore point right in the middle of your CD / DVD Burn and the disk has a fit jumping back and forth between the files being read for the burn and the
restore point being created, also nearly everything passes through the swap / page file so having two HDDs raises the over all system performance.

remotely retrieving a huge file from the same disk while burning or encoding isn't a good idea even if the system had 8 CPU's the bottleneck is still at the the drives performance threshold.

I've remotely retrieved small files files many times with no ill effect while doing live audio recording but the recording is going to another disk & not the one I'm accessing.

]]>

A comment on: Does accessing my computer's hard disk over the network impact the computer's performance?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Ramesh Sahoo on 2008-12-30

2008-12-31T07:28:03Z

I want to know the procidure of exchange server 2003 installation procidure and required service packs for this.

]]>

A comment on: Does accessing my computer's hard disk over the network impact the computer's performance?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Chris Buechler on 2008-12-26

2008-12-27T00:10:46Z

It really depends on how much you're doing, and how fast your system is. Transferring a few Word documents across the network is trivial. Transferring several GB of data across the network can be another story.

It depends on what kind of NIC you have (cheap ones put vastly more load on your CPU, better ones like Intel PRO/1000 cards do much more on the NIC and don't rely nearly as much on the CPU), and how fast your system is. On a reasonably new system on a 100 Mb network, file copies of even large amounts of data should have an insignificant impact on system performance. On a gigabit network, or with an older system, pushing significant amounts of data will have a major impact on system performance.

Though the days of worrying about killing a CD or DVD burn because your system can't keep up are pretty much long gone. This isn't 1996 anymore, when that was truly a concern. With multi-core processors being the standard, and most applications being single threaded so they only use a single core, your system should even stay highly responsive while doing these types of things. And there isn't any reason to worry about something going wrong if you use the computer for something else - the worst that can happen, unless you're using a buggy application, is it will take longer to complete.

]]>

A comment on: Does accessing my computer's hard disk over the network impact the computer's performance?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.