What's the fastest system for laptops?

For notebook players, installing the operating system is a very common operation, especially in the flash and mobile hard drive popularity of the current, more and more users choose to use these devices to install the operating system, and gradually discard the easily damaged discs. But with so many Windows7 installation media to choose from, which media is the fastest way to install the operating system? What is the time difference between different media?

Introduction of six installation media

At present, the notebook supports the USB-HDD way to start, with this kind of startup way, the user can install the operating system with the flash memory, the removable hard disk, the external mobile drive device. In order to close to everyone's use, this test I not only joined the traditional CD-ROM installation methods, such as notebook with CD-ROM drive, external mobile optical drive (ASUS bw-12s1s-u), but also joined the Kingston Flash (Mini Fun G2/8GB), a motley Flash (8GB), A mobile hard drive with built-in mechanical hard disk (hard drive model Seagate St95005620as), a mobile hard drive with built-in solid-state hard disk (hard drive model Kingston SBVP325-S2/64GB) altogether six kinds of installation media, which basically represent the devices that users will use when they install the WINDOWS7 system.

This test, we selected the Shenzhou elegant A460p-i3 notebook and 3.1GB capacity of the WINDOWS7 system ISO installation files for testing (a total of 1065 files), using the V9.3 version of the UltraISO software "write hard disk mirroring" function (pictured below), The WINDOWS7 system ISO installation file is written to the media to be tested, calculating the installation time from the Windows Setup Enable interface to the input user name screen. To remind you, install the process notebook external power and use the USB2.0 interface of the notebook.

Tips: In the use of UltraISO software to u disk or mobile hard disk to write to the ISO image, it is best to temporarily quit the "Jinshan Poison Pa" and "QQ Security Butler" and other security protection software, to avoid the error in the write process.

Read speed of different media

To understand the difference in the transmission speed of different media, we tested the transmission speed of different installation media before testing, in which the actual copy speed of the optical drive calculates the transmission speed by calculating the time consuming of copying ISO files. For this part of the test, we will use HD tach and HD Tune Pro software to focus on testing the random transmission speed of HD Tune Pro software when reading different sizes of files, such as 4KB, 64KB and 1MB file sizes, Because the installation process for the WINDOWS7 system involves a lot of small file read operations.

See table 1, through the test can be seen, this part of the test built-in solid-state hard disk mobile hard disk read the fastest, which read 512bytes small files when the transmission speed of 0.84mb/s, relative to the built-in mechanical hard disk mobile hard drive 0.028mb/s leading a lot. In the 4KB, 64KB file reading speed test, solid-state hard disk mobile hard disk relative to the mechanical hard drive, in the transmission speed of the same significant lead.

To our surprise, Kingston Flash reading speed is very fast, in 512bytes, 4KB and 64KB file reading speed, and solid hard disk mobile hard drive to maintain a small gap, in fact, in the rear of the system installation testing process, Kingston Flash also embodies the obvious advantages.

As for notebook built-in optical drive and 12x optical drive file copy speed contrast, because the notebook built-in optical drive maximum speed of 8x, relative to the 12x of the external optical drive has a certain performance difference, so in the actual file copy test, the two also have a large speed difference.

Significant difference in installation time

Through the installation test can be seen, in the installation speed, the internal mechanical hard disk's mobile hard disk speed incredibly is the slowest, 16 minutes 9 seconds of performance and 12x external optical drive spent the time is basically close. The two fastest mounting media are the removable hard drive and Kingston Flash, which are built into solid state hard drives. One of the built-in solid-state hard disk mobile hard disk Time spent 12 minutes 10 seconds, is the most of the parameters of the installation medium speed, the time spent only than Kingston Flash memory 12 minutes and 50 seconds save 40 seconds. The same as flash memory, the installation time of the Windows7 is still satisfactory, the installation of the operating system spent 15 minutes 55 seconds, compared to the built-in mechanical hard disk of the 16-minute 9-second gap is not too big.

However, it is still important to mention here that the flaw of the motley Flash is embodied in the performance and stability of the flash particle, the general write speed is very slow, and the reading speed will not lag too much. The fact that the ISO was written to a motley flash consumed nearly 20 minutes, and many times there was a burning error. Although the final write is successful, it takes longer to burn than the installation of Windows7, which is a torment for users who often try various ISO versions of ISO files for such a long time. In contrast, Kingston Flash writing is much faster, and it takes only 5 minutes to burn the ISO file.

As for the traditional CD-ROM drive mode, the notebook with the CD-ROM drive time is the slowest of all the parameters of the medium, spent 18 minutes 55 seconds, and 12x external optical drive due to read faster than the notebook optical drive to upgrade some of the final cost of 16 minutes and 1 seconds to complete the installation, The results are very close to the time spent on moving hard drives with built-in mechanical hard disks, as mentioned above.

Small file read speed restricts installation time

Only so there will be more obvious installation time difference, we need to start from the WINDOWS7 system installation mechanism. Windows7 installation will be divided into 5 steps, where the second step is to unpack the operation, the obvious point is that the system installation files from the CD-ROM, flash, removable hard disk to the notebook's system partition and decompression, complete and then perform a series of subsequent configuration operations, this and Windows There are obvious differences in the installation mechanism of XP, so even the WINDOWS7 installation process can be viewed as a process of copy and decompression. During the installation process, even if I unplug the installation media immediately after the unpack operation completes, Windows7 can complete the installation without ejecting the error dialog box where the installation file cannot be found.

So the Windows7 installation process depends on how much time it takes to install a small file, such as a solid-state hard drive, a Kingston Flash, that is used for this test. However, it can not be overlooked that limited by the mobile hard disk box or USB2.0 port performance restrictions, solid-state drives and other devices can not be fully developed due to the performance. Moreover, in the process of installing the WINDOWS7 system, the USB3.0 interface of the notebook is unable to work because of lack of drive.

Therefore, through the above test must have been aware of the WINDOWS7 system installation mechanism and the impact of the core installation time, then the choice of what kind of Windows7 installation media, we have a good idea now.

This article is from the "computer newspaper" 2012 13th (published April 02, 2012) Evaluation Laboratory Weekly