[ubuntu-uk] Running off a USB connected HDD?

[Rob Beard]

On 04/05/10 18:45, Markie wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I have a 9.10 32-bit system on my internal SATA drive and ive been
> trying out 10.04 64-bit on an external connected IDE drive on USB (usb2
> I believe). I find that the 10.04 system seems sluggish in comparison.
> Would it be because im using USB connection? I done a similar test on a
> different machine back in release 8.04 / 8.10 but that had an internal
> IDE drive instead, in that case the speeds seemed similar.
>
> I wanted to make sure before I installed 10.04 onto my internal drive
>
> Thanks
>
> Mark
>

I'd say it probably is due to the USB interface.  Although USB 2 is 
fairly quick, it also has a CPU overhead and it isn't as quick as a SATA 
connection.

I've also found that my machine (Core 2 Duo 2Ghz notebook, 4GB Ram with 
320GB 7200RPM SATA300 drive) runs quicker with Ext3 rather than Ext4 
(although it does take a while to do a disk check).

Rob