Who produces USB external drives compatible with Windows 98SE?

[Kenn Caesius]

I suppose that in more detail I know about external hard drives and
flash drive that are compatible with windows 98SE - either specific
products you recommend or the manufacturers that still offer drivers but
devoid of personal experience.

---End of message---

[Steven Saunderson]

On Mon, 9 May 2011 11:26:35 -0700, "Kenn Caesius"

Post by Kenn Caesius
I suppose that in more detail I know about external hard drives and
flash drive that are compatible with windows 98SE - either specific
products you recommend or the manufacturers that still offer drivers but
devoid of personal experience.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here. The main problem I
know of is that external drives are normally one NTFS partition. For
Win98SE access I have to re-partition the drive (say 4 FAT32 volumes of
32GB and 2 big NTFS volumes).

Cheers,

[Kenn Caesius]

What I was alluding to in my earlier post is the difficulty of finding
external hard drives and flash drives that are compatible with Windows
98SE - it seems that every external HDD and USB flash drive sold at my local
store is only compatible with Windows 2000 and up.

Now excluding factors like capacity, I would like to know what posters here
use and recommend, preferably devices with drivers readily available from
manufacturer.

---end of message---

[Sanity Clause]

Post by Kenn Caesius
Now excluding factors like capacity, I would like to know what posters here
use and recommend, preferably devices with drivers readily available from
manufacturer.

Sandisk cruzer 4gb
Kingston Datatraveler G3 4gb
Both work fine here with "nusb33e.exe" installed.

[Steven Saunderson]

On Tue, 10 May 2011 10:40:56 -0700, "Kenn Caesius"

Post by Kenn Caesius
Now excluding factors like capacity, I would like to know what posters here
use and recommend, preferably devices with drivers readily available from
manufacturer.

I'm using nusb31e as the driver. External drives include a WD Elements
1TB drive (with 4 32GB FAT32 volumes accessible) and a Maxtor 500GB
drive with 2 32GB FAT32 volumes accessible. For flash drives most are
Imation 8GB units. Max reading speed for the hard drives is about
30MB/s and for the flash drives is about 18MB/s.

Cheers,

[Kenn Caesius]

Thank you two, both of you have presented very useful information that I
am sure to apply to my own computer.

---End of message---

[98 Guy]

Post by Kenn Caesius
Thank you two, both of you have presented very useful information
that I am sure to apply to my own computer.

Hey Kenn.

Glad I could be of service, and that you found the information that I
posted useful.

[98 Guy]

Post by Kenn Caesius
I suppose that in more detail I know about external hard drives
and flash drive that are compatible with windows 98SE - either
specific products you recommend or the manufacturers that still
offer drivers but devoid of personal experience.

You might want to read this thread:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/146397-ext-hdds-greater-than-137gb-under-win-me/

There's a lot of pages. Maybe start at the end and work your way
backwards.

I highly recommend that unless you need drive portability, that you
instead install a new hard drive inside your computer on your existing
IDE or SATA controller. It will be MUCH faster and no worries about
software incompatibility.

The win-98 system that I'm using to type this message has an 80 gb IDE
hard drive in addition to a 400 gb and 750 gb SATA hard drives. I have
other win-98 systems using a 1.5 tb SATA hard drive.

Otherwise, what you need is to install one of several different
universal USB drivers for win-98 - some of which are also mentioned in
that thread. But be aware that the performance of USB hard drives is
far inferior to IDE or SATA.

I also recommend that you post (or cross post) your win-98 questions to
microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion because it seems to be used by
more people than alt.windows98.

[j***@myplace.com]

Post by 98 Guy

Post by Kenn Caesius
I suppose that in more detail I know about external hard drives
and flash drive that are compatible with windows 98SE - either
specific products you recommend or the manufacturers that still
offer drivers but devoid of personal experience.

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/146397-ext-hdds-greater-than-137gb-under-win-me/
There's a lot of pages. Maybe start at the end and work your way
backwards.
I highly recommend that unless you need drive portability, that you
instead install a new hard drive inside your computer on your existing
IDE or SATA controller. It will be MUCH faster and no worries about
software incompatibility.
The win-98 system that I'm using to type this message has an 80 gb IDE
hard drive in addition to a 400 gb and 750 gb SATA hard drives. I have
other win-98 systems using a 1.5 tb SATA hard drive.

How the heck do you run those huge drives on 98? Then again, why does
anyone need a drive that big? I have nearly 6000 MP3 files and 22gigs
of Photos, plus 8 gigs of videos and another 5 gigs of downloads
(yeah, I have all the old versions of freeware and shareware programs
saved, going back to the mid 80's). I also have Win98 and Win2000
installed, and I'm only using 70gigs. I had tow 40gb drives but was
lacking space to download or modify stuff, so I installed a 120gb PLUS
kept one of my 40gb drives. I doubled my space, that should last me
years before I fill it.

Post by 98 Guy
Otherwise, what you need is to install one of several different
universal USB drivers for win-98 - some of which are also mentioned in
that thread. But be aware that the performance of USB hard drives is
far inferior to IDE or SATA.

The performance is only slow in Win98, boot to Win2000 or XP and it's
as fast as any internal drive, except that those USB drives take a
minute to get "started". My guess about the speed is because Win98
cant use USB2. That's why I also have Win2000 installed as a dual
boot. I do all my USB work from Win2000. 2000 is much more like 98
than XP.

Post by 98 Guy
I also recommend that you post (or cross post) your win-98 questions to
microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion because it seems to be used by
more people than alt.windows98.

Huh? I'm reading this on microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion ....

[98 Guy]

No, there is a significant speed difference between USB2, IDE, and
USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)

Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the number
listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more likely for flash thumb
drives and not for hard drives.

You will frequently see SATA speeds listed in terms of both giga-bits
per second (1.5, 3.0, etc) as well as mega-bytes per second.

The top-end for IDE is 133 MB/sec, but older motherboards will usually
have a limit of either 66 or 100 MB/sec.

Based on the numbers I've seen, the write-speed for USB thumb drives are
proportional to their cost. A large number of them will only do 3 to 4
MB/SEC, and the vast majority will do 3 to 7 MB/sec (write speed). Some
will do in the range of 10 to 15 MB/sec. Read speed is uniformly
faster, usually about 10 to 20 MB/sec in most cases, but many can do up
to 30 MB/sec.

The numbers I've seen for USB hard drives have their read speeds start
around 10 MB/sec but more commonly you can expect 15 to 20 MB/sec, with
some drives reaching 30 to 40 MB/sec. Write speeds range from 10 to 30
MB/sec.

Post by j***@myplace.com

Post by 98 Guy
I also recommend that you post (or cross post) your win-98
questions to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion because
it seems to be used by more people than alt.windows98.

Huh? I'm reading this on microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion ...

I think he's refering to the fact that this got crossposted to BOTH
newsgroups, but I've removed the alt.windows98 one.

My first post in this thread was a response to a post made by Kenn
Caesius in alt.windows98 (that should have been clearly seen if you look
back at how I referenced his post in my reply). I added m.p.w.g_d to
the distribution when I replied.

I have re-added alt.windows98 to this response, for the benefit of Kenn
Caesius (who doesn't seem to read m.p.w.g_d for some reason).

[j***@myplace.com]

Post by 98 Guy
Based on the numbers I've seen, the write-speed for USB thumb drives are
proportional to their cost. A large number of them will only do 3 to 4
MB/SEC, and the vast majority will do 3 to 7 MB/sec (write speed). Some
will do in the range of 10 to 15 MB/sec. Read speed is uniformly
faster, usually about 10 to 20 MB/sec in most cases, but many can do up
to 30 MB/sec.

Oh well, I remember when it took a whole minute or more to write 1.4
megs to a floppy, so I'm satisfied with the speed of any USB devices.
Seems some people feel they need to go faster and faster with
everything on their computers. I say "What's the big rush?". It
reminds me of the assholes who tailgate me on the highway, because
they cant get anywhere fast enough. Frick em' I'll take my time,
enjoy the scenery, and arrive at my destination safely, even if it
takes a few more minutes. When copying data to a USB drive, take some
time to enjoy the scenery. In other words, go make a cup of coffee,
pet the dog, talk to the kids or spouse, or just do all the copying
while you are asleep if it's a complete backup or large number of
files. Haste makes Waste!

[thanatoid]

Post by j***@myplace.com

Post by 98 Guy
Based on the numbers I've seen, the write-speed for USB
thumb drives are proportional to their cost. A large
number of them will only do 3 to 4 MB/SEC, and the vast
majority will do 3 to 7 MB/sec (write speed). Some will do
in the range of 10 to 15 MB/sec. Read speed is uniformly
faster, usually about 10 to 20 MB/sec in most cases, but
many can do up to 30 MB/sec.

Oh well, I remember when it took a whole minute or more to
write 1.4 megs to a floppy, so I'm satisfied with the speed
of any USB devices. Seems some people feel they need to go
faster and faster with everything on their computers. I
say "What's the big rush?". It reminds me of the assholes
who tailgate me on the highway, because they cant get
anywhere fast enough. Frick em' I'll take my time, enjoy
the scenery, and arrive at my destination safely, even if
it takes a few more minutes. When copying data to a USB
drive, take some time to enjoy the scenery. In other
words, go make a cup of coffee, pet the dog, talk to the
kids or spouse, or just do all the copying while you are
asleep if it's a complete backup or large number of files.
Haste makes Waste!

Apart from the fact - referring to an earlier post - that USB2
DOES work on 98SE (Lite!), I have a theory that if you compress
the data you are copying (unless they're pretty large files and
not four hundred or four thousand 200KB files); compress NOT to
make it smaller, but to have the system have *LESS FILES* to
work with, it might make the process noticeably faster.

Perhaps someone who actually knows something about computers
file copying can comment on that theory.

[Lostgallifreyan]

Post by thanatoid
Apart from the fact - referring to an earlier post - that USB2
DOES work on 98SE (Lite!), I have a theory that if you compress
the data you are copying (unless they're pretty large files and
not four hundred or four thousand 200KB files); compress NOT to
make it smaller, but to have the system have *LESS FILES* to
work with, it might make the process noticeably faster.
Perhaps someone who actually knows something about computers
file copying can comment on that theory.

You're right, because reading the file records takes time too. If you send
stuff between machines on a LAN via FTP it REALLY pays to use the 'store'
option on a RAR file, send that, then unpack at the far end. It beats waiting
for each file record to be read, and a separate transfer initiated for each.
The time difference won't be so obvious on local disk copies but per volume
of total data, I'm sure it would be measurable.

On UNIX based systems, it's common practise to do TAR and GZIP. The tar bit
means tarball, they don't compress (the GZip bit does that), they just bind
the small together for speed and integrity during transfers, and also to save
space on disks by avoiding slack space waste.

Ghost has an option for 'fast' compression, that uses a compromise between
disk space and speed. I'm not sure, but there migh tbe an optimal point that
is faster than either method alone. I mean if there is no compression, it's
all disk and buss speeds, if you compress a LITTLE, maybe you can reduce that
time by more than the CPU takes to do the compression... Obviously if you
compress hard, the CPU will make it slow, never mind how good the storage
systems are.

About 98-Lite and USB2, right again, I notived someone has said not, and it
bugged me for the two days since I firgot who and where. Another nice system
not mentioned here yet is FireWire. For some reason, maybe th ecurrent device
I have that is supposed to use it, it fails, only USB2 works, but about three
years ago I had an external drive that used it right. With no fuss, no extra
installs, I just plugged it in, and it ran fast enough to feel like an
intenral disk. Those were at UDMA4 or 5, but FireWire is no slouch. Even in
the older form it is faster on sustained rates than USB2.

[thanatoid]

Lostgallifreyan <no-***@nowhere.net> wrote in news:***@216.196.109.145:

<snip>

Post by Lostgallifreyan
About 98-Lite and USB2, right again, I notived someone has
said not, and it bugged me for the two days since I firgot
who and where. Another nice system not mentioned here yet
is FireWire. For some reason, maybe th ecurrent device I
have that is supposed to use it, it fails, only USB2 works,
but about three years ago I had an external drive that used
it right. With no fuss, no extra installs, I just plugged
it in, and it ran fast enough to feel like an intenral
disk. Those were at UDMA4 or 5, but FireWire is no slouch.
Even in the older form it is faster on sustained rates than
USB2.

Yeah, FireWire is cool, the p[problem is that the only FireWire
devices I have seen are SoundBlaster Audigy sound cards - I have
a connector on one of mine (I have 3 old computers ranging from
about 18 to 7 years old - but I have never plugged anything into
it. There certainly had to have been SOME devices using FireWire
connection for a while around the turn of the century, but the
timing was unfortunate since USB was a lot easier and basically,
universal, no pun intended. I have not seen the term FireWire
mentioned in YEARS, let alone seen a device. But then again, I
don't get out much.

And if the specs for USB3 are as claimed, well...

BTW, thank you for confirming my exact line of thought on file
transfers.

[Lostgallifreyan]

Post by thanatoid
Yeah, FireWire is cool, the p[problem is that the only FireWire
devices I have seen are SoundBlaster Audigy sound cards - I have
a connector on one of mine (I have 3 old computers ranging from
about 18 to 7 years old - but I have never plugged anything into
it. There certainly had to have been SOME devices using FireWire
connection for a while around the turn of the century, but the
timing was unfortunate since USB was a lot easier and basically,
universal, no pun intended. I have not seen the term FireWire
mentioned in YEARS, let alone seen a device. But then again, I
don't get out much.

Nopr does FireWire. :) Well, it costs royalties every time anyone wants to
make a plug. Mostly, it;s used for audio engineering I think, but also on
industrial embedded boards like the ITX ones I use. There's a software called
FireNet or some such, that can network two machines if they have ports. I
haven't tried that yet though. I always use Ethernet and TCP/IP for that.

I don't know the USB3 spec, but I bet the later FireWires will match it, and
likely more. The lowliest FireWire beats the best USB2. I intend to find out
what stopped it working on my later installs because it's either the external
hardware, or a software error. When I first tried it, it was as simple and
primal as hooking up a loudspeaker with a bti of bellwire. It just worked
without me having to give it any more thought than I would a piece of string!
I never saw any other interface except MIDI work that easily.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by thanatoid
Yeah, FireWire is cool, the p[problem is that the only FireWire
devices I have seen are SoundBlaster Audigy sound cards - I have

About the time video started to go digital (though the camcorders were
still using tape), a lot of camcorders used FireWire, though it tended
to be called iLink or something like that. Well, I say they used it: the
interface was there on a lot of camcorders, but I think few computers
had it, so few people actually _used_ it (I fear they probably used
their old VHS systems for _editing_: though probably most people didn't
actually _edit_ anyway. Probably people who use camcorders still don't,
much anyway).

A friend had a video capture unit - named Pinnacle - that had a firewire
interface, and worked noticeably better than the USB video capture units
available at the time he got it: then, the majority of (certainly USB)
video capture units worked at either half resolution, lower than full
frame rate, or both; the few that didn't seemed to struggle, either
because of processing limitations or the USB interface, whereas his
Pinnacle unit seemed to work fine.

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by thanatoid
a connector on one of mine (I have 3 old computers ranging from
about 18 to 7 years old - but I have never plugged anything into
it. There certainly had to have been SOME devices using FireWire
connection for a while around the turn of the century, but the

Some external hard drives used it too, where speed was important. I
would say it briefly took the place of SCSI in that respect - but for a
very short time.

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by thanatoid
timing was unfortunate since USB was a lot easier and basically,
universal, no pun intended. I have not seen the term FireWire
mentioned in YEARS, let alone seen a device. But then again, I
don't get out much.

Nopr does FireWire. :) Well, it costs royalties every time anyone wants to
make a plug. Mostly, it;s used for audio engineering I think, but also on

Interesting; I had the feeling that video was the only place it was in
any sort of widespread use. (But as I'm not in either trade
professionally, I'm probably wrong.)
[]

Post by Lostgallifreyan
hardware, or a software error. When I first tried it, it was as simple and
primal as hooking up a loudspeaker with a bti of bellwire. It just worked
without me having to give it any more thought than I would a piece of string!
I never saw any other interface except MIDI work that easily.

Yes, when Len first tried it with one of his camcorders, it did seem to
work very well.

[Lostgallifreyan]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by Lostgallifreyan
Nopr does FireWire. :) Well, it costs royalties every time anyone wants to
make a plug. Mostly, it;s used for audio engineering I think, but also on

Interesting; I had the feeling that video was the only place it was in
any sort of widespread use. (But as I'm not in either trade
professionally, I'm probably wrong.)

Probably right actually, maybe that's why they went for royalties, they
didn't expect to mass-produce enough to make it pay on scale alone. They
self-limited though, in that case. I didn't know it had replaced SCSI even
for a moment, but I did think of it and wish it would. :) It seemed like
MIDI, but with SCSI's speeds. Obviously in the electronic music scene that is
a strong draw. A sampler might have needed no other interface if MIDI
messages arrived the same way.

Fortunately FireWire's user base is the kind that digs its heels in, so it
will likely survive long term, building a steady following that makes it
impossible to kill off. I mean, if M$ decided that USB was dead, it WOULD
die, right?

[Bill in Co]

Post by 98 Guy

No, there is a significant speed difference between USB2, IDE, and
USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)

Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the number
listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more likely for flash thumb
drives and not for hard drives.

Don't think so. I just looked up one kinda randomly (Western Digital 500GB
My Book Home Edition) reviewed on www.about.com and the reviewer said he got
15 MB/sec using the USB2 connection (and 20 MB/sec using Firewire), which is
still in the same ballpark, and MUCH slower than IDE or SATA.

The 480 Mb/sec (= 60 MB/sec) spec for USB2 is JUST for the USB2 interface,
and that clearly is not the limiting factor here (for using a mass storage
device like an external USB2 connected hard drive)

Post by 98 Guy
You will frequently see SATA speeds listed in terms of both giga-bits
per second (1.5, 3.0, etc) as well as mega-bytes per second.
The top-end for IDE is 133 MB/sec, but older motherboards will usually
have a limit of either 66 or 100 MB/sec.

Yes, I was using the top end. The ATA 66 is pretty old!

Post by 98 Guy
Based on the numbers I've seen, the write-speed for USB thumb drives are
proportional to their cost. A large number of them will only do 3 to 4
MB/SEC, and the vast majority will do 3 to 7 MB/sec (write speed). Some
will do in the range of 10 to 15 MB/sec. Read speed is uniformly
faster, usually about 10 to 20 MB/sec in most cases, but many can do up
to 30 MB/sec.

Yup, the solid state thumb drives are relatively slow when written to, and
significantly faster when read from.

Post by 98 Guy
The numbers I've seen for USB hard drives have their read speeds start
around 10 MB/sec but more commonly you can expect 15 to 20 MB/sec, with
some drives reaching 30 to 40 MB/sec. Write speeds range from 10 to 30
MB/sec.

And I believe those are for the mechanical hard drives, not solid state
drives.

Post by 98 Guy

Post by j***@myplace.com

Post by 98 Guy
I also recommend that you post (or cross post) your win-98
questions to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion because
it seems to be used by more people than alt.windows98.

Huh? I'm reading this on microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion ...

I think he's refering to the fact that this got crossposted to BOTH
newsgroups, but I've removed the alt.windows98 one.

My first post in this thread was a response to a post made by Kenn
Caesius in alt.windows98 (that should have been clearly seen if you look
back at how I referenced his post in my reply). I added m.p.w.g_d to
the distribution when I replied.
I have re-added alt.windows98 to this response, for the benefit of Kenn
Caesius (who doesn't seem to read m.p.w.g_d for some reason).

[Steven Saunderson]

On Wed, 11 May 2011 13:45:16 -0600, "Bill in Co"

Post by 98 Guy

No, there is a significant speed difference between USB2, IDE, and
USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)

Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the number
listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more likely for flash thumb
drives and not for hard drives.

I'm seeing about 30MB/s with a USB2 connection to an external hard drive
and 18MB/s to a flash drive. For IDE (100MB/s) hard drives I'm seeing
about 30MB/s with Win98se and 60MB/s with WinXP. So I agree that IDE
and SATA are faster (maybe with less CPU overhead also) than USB2 but
the difference is less than stated above.

Cheers,

[98 Guy]

USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)
Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the
number listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more
likely for flash thumb drives and not for hard drives.
Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

The number you posted above for USB2 was 5 MB/sec.

I said no, that's too slow for a USB-connected hard drive (and by hard
drive, I mean rotating platter, not flash ram). I said that 5 MB/sec
was typical of a flash thumb-drive, and that the numbers for a hard
drive are more like 20 to 40 mb/sec.

I just looked up one kinda randomly (Western Digital 500GB
My Book Home Edition) reviewed on www.about.com and the
reviewer said he got 15 MB/sec using the USB2 connection

So you agree with me that 5 MB/sec (your number from way above) is NOT
the usual speed for a USB-connected hard drive, but is actually more in
line with a USB thumb (flash) drive.

But we both agree that a USB-connected hard drive is nowhere near as
fast as an IDE or SATA - connected hard drive.

Now I don't have a hard-drive test program, but here's a real-world SATA
read/write performance test:

I took a directory containing 14 files with a total size of
4,990,795,776 bytes that was located on my 400 gb SATA drive and copied
it to my 750 GB sata drive. This folder represents the contents of a
DVD music video disk that I downloaded last night. 4 of the files are 1
gb VOB files, and 1 is about 500 mb VOB, the rest of the files being
smaller BUP, VOB and IFO files.

This was done in plain ordinary Windows 98se.

The copy process took 2 minutes and 5 seconds (125 seconds). When you
divide 4,990,795,776 bytes by 125 seconds you get 39,926,366 bytes per
second - which is either 40 or 38 MB/sec depending on how you define a
mega-byte.

For a simultaneous read/write operation, with all the over-head of the
OS, I think that's a pretty respectable data transfer rate.

[Bill in Co]

Post by 98 Guy

USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)
Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the
number listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more
likely for flash thumb drives and not for hard drives.
Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

That the value quoted above was for *flash* drives (reread the context) -
but rather was for the mechanical ones.

Post by 98 Guy
The number you posted above for USB2 was 5 MB/sec.

And that particular "in practice" value came from the Wiki link I posted.
Did you check it? I even quoted part of it. It was just quoted as a
typically found "in practice" value (as to whenever that article was
written).

Post by 98 Guy
I said no, that's too slow for a USB-connected hard drive (and by hard
drive, I mean rotating platter, not flash ram). I said that 5 MB/sec
was typical of a flash thumb-drive, and that the numbers for a hard
drive are more like 20 to 40 mb/sec.

I just looked up one kinda randomly (Western Digital 500GB
My Book Home Edition) reviewed on www.about.com and the
reviewer said he got 15 MB/sec using the USB2 connection

So you agree with me that 5 MB/sec (your number from way above) is NOT
the usual speed for a USB-connected hard drive, but is actually more in
line with a USB thumb (flash) drive.

No, I do NOT agree with that. The 5 MB/sec is evidently for a slower
mechanical drive than that newer Western Digital model I mentioned, which
got 15 MB/sec. USB external flash drives are even slower (in writing, at
least)

Post by 98 Guy
But we both agree that a USB-connected hard drive is nowhere near as
fast as an IDE or SATA - connected hard drive.
Now I don't have a hard-drive test program, but here's a real-world SATA

The article mentioning that Western Digital drive had a real world test.
(But we were mostly talking about USB2 external drives here).

Post by 98 Guy
I took a directory containing 14 files with a total size of
4,990,795,776 bytes that was located on my 400 gb SATA drive and copied
it to my 750 GB sata drive. This folder represents the contents of a
DVD music video disk that I downloaded last night. 4 of the files are 1
gb VOB files, and 1 is about 500 mb VOB, the rest of the files being
smaller BUP, VOB and IFO files.
This was done in plain ordinary Windows 98se.
The copy process took 2 minutes and 5 seconds (125 seconds). When you
divide 4,990,795,776 bytes by 125 seconds you get 39,926,366 bytes per
second - which is either 40 or 38 MB/sec depending on how you define a
mega-byte.
For a simultaneous read/write operation, with all the over-head of the
OS, I think that's a pretty respectable data transfer rate.

The 150 MB/sec figure may be a bit on the high end, in practice. I don't
know how many SATA1 drives get closer to that than yours in practice and
haven't looked at the drive spec sheets, although my expectation is there
are some that do a lot better than your 40 MB/sec in practice.

[Lostgallifreyan]

Post by 98 Guy

Post by Bill in Co
Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

I don't think. Not after last night. Give me time...

[Bill in Co]

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by 98 Guy

Post by Bill in Co
Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

I don't think. Not after last night. Give me time...

I think Descartes has (had) the answer...

[Lostgallifreyan]

Post by Bill in Co

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by 98 Guy

Post by Bill in Co
Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

I don't think. Not after last night. Give me time...

I think Descartes has (had) the answer...

Do tell... :) I haven't.
Oh wait, the therefore I am bit? His?

[Bill in Co]

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by Bill in Co

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by 98 Guy

Post by Bill in Co
Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

I don't think. Not after last night. Give me time...

I think Descartes has (had) the answer...

Do tell... :) I haven't.
Oh wait, the therefore I am bit? His?

Exactly.
"Elementary, my Dear Watson.." :-)

[Lostgallifreyan]

Post by Bill in Co

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by Bill in Co

Post by Lostgallifreyan

Post by 98 Guy

Post by Bill in Co
Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

I don't think. Not after last night. Give me time...

I think Descartes has (had) the answer...

Do tell... :) I haven't.
Oh wait, the therefore I am bit? His?

Exactly.
"Elementary, my Dear Watson.." :-)

I wish I could insert a House and Holmes joke here but I can't think of
one...