Good day fen_tiger,
Please know that my queries are in no way to discredit your positive recent experiences with Trainz or anything of that sort. On the contrary, I am curious as to the real cause behind this performance improvement which many users may find useful including me, because who doesn't want to eliminate stutters and lag? The reason why the concept of "X software runs better on flash drive than on hard drive" does not make sense is because the technological differences between these two interfaces are vastly different. Please allow me to explain.
For simple comparison, everything I have posted thus far refer to data rates in Megabits (Mb/s) per second. To obtain Megabytes (MB/s) per second, simply divide by 8.
USB 2.0 allows for a maximum data rate of 480Mb/s.
IDE/PATA allows for a maximum data rate of 1116Mbit/s.
SATA2 allows for a maximum data rate of 3000Mbit/s.
Firewire 800 allows for a maximum data rate of 3200Mbit/s.
This is wrong. SATA and USB are interfaces, just like you interface with, say, your soup with a spoon. A flash drive contains memory chips that interact with your motherboard using the USB standard. Due to its design, it is not technically possible to exceed the design speed (ie. 480Mbit/s). You have a small spoon to drink your soup with. True, a hard drive connects to the same motherboard using a cable, but this cable (and the drive) interact with your motherboard using SATA standard which allows it to reach 3000Mbit/s. The cable does not affect the speed of the interface, it is just a way to move the data from one place to another. You have a big spoon to drink your soup with.
An external Firewire 800 device can also be connected to the motherboard using a long Firewire cable, but because of Firewire's design, it can reach 3200 Mbit/s. In conclusion, it is not cables or lack thereof that affect speed, but the interface used. USB cannot be faster than SATA. You cannot drink more soup using a smaller spoon than you can using a bigger one.
Whenever I play Grand Theft Auto on the Playstation2, the game disk is constantly loading all of the time just to keep the game running. But if I take the disk out of the PS2, the game will immediately freeze up and become un-responsive.[/QUOTE]
Your Playstation2 became unresponsive because you removed the source media and it now has nothing to load from. No seriously, try removing your flash drive while you're playing Trainz.
Regards,
Nicholas
Please know that my queries are in no way to discredit your positive recent experiences with Trainz or anything of that sort. On the contrary, I am curious as to the real cause behind this performance improvement which many users may find useful including me, because who doesn't want to eliminate stutters and lag? The reason why the concept of "X software runs better on flash drive than on hard drive" does not make sense is because the technological differences between these two interfaces are vastly different. Please allow me to explain.
For simple comparison, everything I have posted thus far refer to data rates in Megabits (Mb/s) per second. To obtain Megabytes (MB/s) per second, simply divide by 8.
USB 2.0 allows for a maximum data rate of 480Mb/s.
IDE/PATA allows for a maximum data rate of 1116Mbit/s.
SATA2 allows for a maximum data rate of 3000Mbit/s.
Firewire 800 allows for a maximum data rate of 3200Mbit/s.
Usually, HDD's connect via a SATA cable to the motherboard whereas a USB stick is a direct interface connection (USB memory chips - motherboard) with no in-between cable. For a HDD to load data it has to first locate and index the required data before reading it and then sending the data to the graphics/audio portions of the motherboard.
This is wrong. SATA and USB are interfaces, just like you interface with, say, your soup with a spoon. A flash drive contains memory chips that interact with your motherboard using the USB standard. Due to its design, it is not technically possible to exceed the design speed (ie. 480Mbit/s). You have a small spoon to drink your soup with. True, a hard drive connects to the same motherboard using a cable, but this cable (and the drive) interact with your motherboard using SATA standard which allows it to reach 3000Mbit/s. The cable does not affect the speed of the interface, it is just a way to move the data from one place to another. You have a big spoon to drink your soup with.
An external Firewire 800 device can also be connected to the motherboard using a long Firewire cable, but because of Firewire's design, it can reach 3200 Mbit/s. In conclusion, it is not cables or lack thereof that affect speed, but the interface used. USB cannot be faster than SATA. You cannot drink more soup using a smaller spoon than you can using a bigger one.
Whenever I play Grand Theft Auto on the Playstation2, the game disk is constantly loading all of the time just to keep the game running. But if I take the disk out of the PS2, the game will immediately freeze up and become un-responsive.[/QUOTE]
Your Playstation2 became unresponsive because you removed the source media and it now has nothing to load from. No seriously, try removing your flash drive while you're playing Trainz.
Regards,
Nicholas