would it work?

[maku8ex]

i'm getting a new comp, which i plan to keep separately for torrents, serving etc.Its gonna have 4 GB RAM & a SATA 1.5 drive.

i'm gonna keep it connected to a 100 mbit dedicated line, my question is will the SATA drive be able to handle all that bandwidth?The dl/ul speeds for a 100 mbit are ~12MB/s, can the drive handle that (& will i be able to use the comp at the same time?)

some ppl say that at speeds like that, the PC lags like hell & its virtually unusable.

server owners/l337s help me out here

[Switeck]

Depends alot on how big the drive's cache is. If it's 2 MB...there's going to be all kinds of slowdowns. If it's 16 MB or larger, it shouldn't be as bad...if at all!

Also it depends on whether you're running optimized SATA drivers for your motherboard or add-on controller. If it's an add-on controller, just remember that it'll be putting a BIG load on your PCI slots (which are all shared bandwidth).

[TheBear]

I wouldn't consider that speed without a RAID w/parity or similar drive array.

[Dark Shroud]

A raid won't do much if it's ATA-100 hard drives. So the question is what is the hard drive setup?

[Switeck]

You could possibly increase µTorrent's RAM cache size to something ridiculous and get it to work ok.

[maku8ex]

well the drive's specs are as follows:

FORMATTED CAPACITY (GB) __________________80

ACTUATOR TYPE ____________________________VOICE COIL

CYLINDERS __PHYSICAL______________________

HEADS ______PHYSICAL______________________2

DISCS (3.5 in) ___________________________1

MEDIA TYPE _______________________________THIN FILM

HEAD TYPE ________________________________GMR

RECORDING METHOD _________________________EPRML 16/17 ZBR

INTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (Mbytes/sec) ______up to 85.4

SUSTAINED TRANSFER RATE (MB/sec)__________up to 58

EXTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (Mbytes/sec) ______up to 150

PIO/DMA/UDMA MODE (max) __________________4/2/6

SPINDLE SPEED (RPM) ______________________7200

AVERAGE LATENCY (mSEC) ___________________4.16

BUFFER ___________________________________8MB

can it take the load??

[Switeck]

If that's all the drive is doing, technically it should be ABLE to...however it also depends on whether you're running multiple torrents at once and whether you're seeding+downloading from the same drive. Even whether the data falls closer to the outer edge of the drive's spindle (where it has higher velocities at the same RPM) can make a huge difference in what it can sustain.

[Ultima]

Hm, location on the drive platter affecting things is a bit of a stretch (though possible, I suppose). The only thing I can say is, set an insanely large cache size (256MB? 512MB?) and disable all cache settings besides "Enable caching of disk writes" and "Enable caching of disk reads," then test ;\

[maku8ex]

@Switeck: yeah i'll be doing ALL of that, multiple torrents, & yeah i'll be dling/uling to the same drive

@Ultima: 256MB 512MB?? dont ppl say that a cache above 32MB is overkill?

[Ultima]

Those were recommendations for the old cache system -- µTorrent makes more effective use of the disk cache now. Honestly, I don't even bother setting this number myself, so I'm not 100% sure how you should set it. If you're unsure, then all I can say is "trial and error" with that number.

[Switeck]

Location on the disk spindle makes a bit more difference than you might think. Even on the best of drives, typically the outer edge can be accessed at 2x the speed of the inner edge...and it may even be 3-4x faster. However these are linear speeds reading beginning to end, not jumping around like a torrent reading/writing small chunks all over.