APM vs APCI W2K

[halfblood]

Hi

I would like to know if it makes any difference to performance depending if I installed Windows 2000 in APM mode rather then ACPI? Does ACPI consume more memory than APM?

Thanks

[dZeus]

well... IF your motherboard BIOS implements ACPI 100% according to specs, then ACPI has the following benefits:
- Hibernation support in win2k
- No more IRQ troubles: all PCI devices all share the same IRQ
- Improved Power Management
- other stuff I can't remember/don't know about.

[Gurm]

In THEORY (mind you only in theory) ACPI is a teensy bit slower because the OS does arbitration of devices. However, this speed loss is more than made up for by lack of device contention, and the fact that no device can ever fire off an IRQ than hangs the system or slows down the system.

So ACPI is better but no faster or slower...

Unless the hardware is built around ACPI, in which case it is faster.

- Gurm

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[halfblood]

OK, I have one more question about Windows 2000.

What is faster, running NTFS or FAT32?
I currently have 7 partitions, two are FAT16, one is NTFS and the rest is FAT32. I have Windows 2000 installed on a NTFS partition.

What gives better performance?
I know that NTFS supports stuff like encrytption and built in compression but I would like to know about speed.

Also, is it better to have the paging file on a NTFS or FAT?

Thanks....

[halfblood]

I'm aware of the benefits of ACPI, but since I have an old AT power supply I don't need hibernation and such stuff. It's enough that it turns off the monitor when needed.
What I would like to know is there any benefit in performance if using ACPI over APM and memory usage. I currently have it installed in ACPI.

[Gurm]

People will argue with me, but with modern hardware (drive controllers and drives), NTFS is much faster, more stable, and less prone to complete-and-utter-your-hard-drive-is-screwed-fragmentation.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Kruzin]

Relocated to the General Hardware forum...

[Scytale]

FAT32 is much (up to 40%) faster than NTFS and is far less prone to fragmentation (I ditched all my NTFS because of that). The type of file system doesn't affect paging performance though.

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[halfblood]

OK, who am I gonna trust?
Does anyone know if there has been any testing done and where I can found the results.
I have noticed that my NTFS partition becomes more fragmented than my FAT...

[spoogenet]

NTFS will tend to have faster seek times, NTFS should tend to have lower fragmentation, and FAT should tend to read files faster. I say tend, because it can depend a little on your config, but generally these will remain true.

When you say that your NTFS becomes far more fragmented than your FAT, is this a comparison that can be made? If you set up a dynamic paging file on a drive that you write/delete files on frequently, it will tend to become quite fragmented regardless of which file system you use. However if you set up two identical systems and set one up with only NTFS, and one with only FAT, and then do the exact same things on the two systems, the NTFS should end up being less fragmented. But just setting up a system and making some partitions FAT and some NTFS, then claiming that NTFS gets more fragmented (because it has your paging file, temporary internet files, temp directory, and program files) than your FAT drive (which has only games, which remain fairly static) is not a fair comparison.

Note my use of the words "should" and "tend"....because, afterall, things don't necessarily work out as they're supposed to.

b

[Scytale]

Just try both and decide what's best for you in your particular case. It's hard to find unbiased information on this topic.

I used to be on NTFS only and did a lot of experimenting over the last years with both FS's and found that FAT32 was always faster, no matter the NTFS cluster size.

Of course NTFS is the better FS, but if you prefer performance over features and crash recovery FAT32 is the way to go - simple, stupid and fast.

Having said that, my professional advise would always be NTFS, just because loosing data and zero-security is a really bad thing to sell.

[Scytale]

Sorry missed your post, Spooge - yes it was a valid comparison. I did many tests, but one was on the same system: System partition on NTFS and later FAT32, exactly the same setup. No dynamic page files and user data folders on other partition to avoid slack.

NTFS fragged like it didn't have a clue at all, clusters allocated all over. For example, the icon cache, ini files and driver updates always got scattered all over a freshly arranged partition. I tried the same thing with and without compression and with four different cluster sizes but there was always this bad ass fragmentation.

FAT32 did get fragmented too, but far less. I used to defrag my NTFS once a week, FAT32 once every month or two months, based on the same level of fragmentation.

[spoogenet]

That's rather amusing (in a bad way, of course). Glad to hear that you actually tested it, your results are rather odd, though. I would expect NTFS to be better in fragmentation. Funny how things work out sometimes, no?

On the other hand, though, one thing to consider is that NTFS does not store files serially, as does FAT. Thus files not being stored in a serial manner (which helps decrease contiguous read performance) implies to me that file fragmentation would be a natural side-effect of the file system, however everybody touts NTFS as having lower fragmentation. Which leads to my next question: does the fragmentation in NTFS actually decrease NTFS performance any, as it severely does in FAT? That is someting I'd like to see a good test run on.

Although the FAT may be faster, how much does fragmentation really affect NTFS? Anybody know?

b

[Compton]

I found NTFS to be slower in Win2k until I turned off that file indexing crap. Now it is much faster than FAT32.

[Gurm]

Compton:

File indexing? Do tell... where is this option located, or is it a service?

Sorry if it's something simple and stupid that I already know about... I'm running on ZERO coffee today.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.