RAM and HDD questions

MaGic

MaGic

New Member
I am currently using one 512mb DDR333 (double sided) and two 256mb DDR333 (single sided) RAM. Giving me a total of 1gb RAM. I heard that when using more than two dimm of RAM sticks, your RAM gets degraded to a slower speed. Not sure if this is true, but if it is, how slow/fast are my RAM now?

I am deciding on buying a new HDD to go on top of the one I am using now. The one I am using now is a 2mb cache and I am thinking about getting the 8mb HDD. Was wondering, would they both be compatible with each other? Or should I buy a slower 2mb HDD instead?
 
Your ram is rated at ddr333, which should be running at 166. All you stick s should be running at that speed, and the fact that you have two dimm sticks should not degrade performance.

As for hdd,
would they both be compatible with each other?
Click to expand...
why would they need to be compatible with each other? as long as they are compatible with the motherboard which im sure the ones you listed will be
 
Whether you can mix 'n match single and double sided DDR is mobo dependant.
Your's obviously works and it will be running at the expected speed.

A case where fast RAM can be slowed down a bit when mixing is by using modules that have different CAS values. If you use a module with CAS=3 then adding modules that are CAS=2 or 2.5 will also be accessed as if they were CAS=3.
It's not much different in practice though unless you want a screaming games machine.

The 2Mb or 8Mb is just the cache inside the HDD, right?
It just affects how much data can be held in the queue. Generally, it helps keep speed optimum reading/writing lots of small files. For large files it doesn't help as the limiting factor is how fast the heads can get data on/off the platters .. which is down to disc RPM.

A HDD can slow another HDD if they are both on the same IDE channel and one has a lower UDMA number than the other.
I doubt you will see this issue though, unless the existing disk is getting long in the tooth and thus wasn't built to do UDMA mode 5
 
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