General questions

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Hello again all,

I have a couple of general questions.

I have recently obtained a new MB, chip, and some memory (MSI K-7 mb, amd 3400+, and 512 DDR3700 ram). My other pc (amd 2000 with 512 DDR32 ram) has two HD's .. an 80gb and a 120gb. Right now .. I cant afford to get another HD as things are tight. In a few months, definately. In the meantime, Id like to use one PC (the 2000) for downloading and general internet usage. The other PC for converting, authoring, and burning.

My questions are:

When converting and authoring on an amd 3400, how much time difference are we talking when converting to the same drive, as opposed to a different drive? (Ex. take a 1gn file converting to a 4gb dvd file .. how long would it take on the same 3400 pc with one drive and with two drives)? Is it substantial enough to even worry about getting another drive right away? Is there any loss in quality when going to the same drive (Im going to assume no for this question)?


As well ... I will be running both PC's through a router. Now, to network 2 pc's without a router, one would generally use a crossover enet cable to each pc. Am I correct in assuming that now my "network" can just run through the router? Ie. I can transfer files from one pc to the other using the router as the "crossover" cable?

I
Any help would, as usual, be greatly appreciated.

LG

[Supreme2k]

1) Two drives won't make a significant difference.

2) The router has a built-in switch. You still need straight-thru cables to connect to the router (unless you have wireless).

[redwudz]

It will be a little slower, but not enough to worry about. It has more an effect on editing if you are using one drive. The OS likes to do 'housekeeping' on the boot drive and that also has an effect. Try to limit programs running in the background accessing the hard drive and you shouldn't have any problems.

No dfference in quality.

As far as networking, just set it up using the New Connection Wizard in XP and it should work fine.

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Thanks guys. As usual, your answers are music to my ears.

Veryyy much appreciated

LG