Faster Hard Drive = Faster System?

Q. Does a faster drive mean a faster system? I need more space, so I’ve decided to buy a new 40GB IDE hard drive to work alongside my existing 20GB ATA-66 drive. At the same time, I’d like to speed up my system. If I buy an ATA-100 drive, will I notice any speed difference?

A. You may notice a fairly good increase in speed. Then again, you may notice no difference at all. The faster the hard drive, the faster your operating system and its applications load, and the faster any kind of disk access executes. If your operating system is installed on the slower drive, however, some important files from many applications will also load on the drive, even if you install the apps themselves on your faster drive. In such a case, the slower drive will slow down those apps.

If you do buy a new, faster drive, the best approach is to put your operating system and the applications you use most frequently on the faster drive. It’s also a good idea to keep the drive defragmented, so you don’t defeat your speed advantage. Before buying a drive, there are a few things to consider.

First, you can put a maximum of four IDE/ATA drives into your system. This includes hard drives, DVD drives, CD-ROM drives, and CD Burners. Second, if you want your ATA-100 drive to operate at its top speed, you must have a drive controller designed for that speed (either on the motherboard or as a separate controller card). Also, the motherboard’s BIOS must support that speed.

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