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Alt-L locks the display but does it also slow down running programs?
The subject is the question. I ask because I sometimes
start a (long) full backup to an external drive and walk away. After a while, Windows will lock the session so I have to sign in again later. When I do, I can't help but think that the backup job has been running more slowly than before. Am I imagining that? |
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#2
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Alt-L locks the display but does it also slow down running programs?
Jason wrote:
The subject is the question. I ask because I sometimes start a (long) full backup to an external drive and walk away. After a while, Windows will lock the session so I have to sign in again later. When I do, I can't help but think that the backup job has been running more slowly than before. Am I imagining that? Perfmon.msc has an item on the left, to log to file. This allows you to record performance counters versus time. For example "Disk Read Bytes/sec" and "Disk Write Bytes/sec" are counters you can log (or plot). Later, you can plot the CSV data in Excel or LibreOffice Calc. What you'd do, is two identical test runs. One where you did the backup, and kept the screen open. Then, a second backup run where the screen was allow to blank or whatever. You should compare full traces (i.e. take the log file full of CSV data and plot in Excel). By comparing full traces, that accounts for natural variations in transfer rate. A simple stop-watch test would do as much, to answer the question. Do two backups. If the completion time is logged, use that, or use a stopwatch. Do your second run and apply your test conditions, and see if the stopwatch time is different. That method won't provide details (how much the performance dropped), but it's easier to set up. ******* For some benchmark tests, you need to flush the System Read Cache, to make the test setup "fair" between runs. If the backup is big enough, it will naturally flush the read cache. On some of the review web sites, the easiest way for them to make identical runs, is to reboot before each run. On Windows 10, you'd unplug the network cable, to prevent any "maintenance" activity in Win10, from fouling your test results. Win10 gets a lot quieter, with the cable unplugged. Paul |
#3
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Alt-L locks the display but does it also slow down running programs?
Jason wrote:
The subject is the question. I ask because I sometimes start a (long) full backup to an external drive and walk away. After a while, Windows will lock the session so I have to sign in again later. When I do, I can't help but think that the backup job has been running more slowly than before. Am I imagining that? Yep, your imagination. Even if the backup program was issuing output to the video device, doesn't matter if it isn't displayed. However, is "lock" actually the screen going blank because the computer went into *sleep* mode? If so, yep, then everything runs slower or even halts. The computer is supposed to be sleeping. You would think that running a backup job would keep the computer from sleeping. Well, perhaps for the CPU but not necessarily for the hard disk, especially if it is one of those "green" drives that spins down and goes into its own sleep mode. I've need backup jobs that have to spend a LONG time compressing a part of a file, especially if the user elects to use the highest compression the backup program offers (which often provides little reduction in backup file size over normal compression level). The CPU is busy crunching away but the green disk sees no activity so it spins down. Then it has to power up and spin up. Repeat ad nauseum. If the green drive doesn't wake up fast enough, the backup program might assume the destination drive is unresponsive and abort the backup job. Have you measure how long a backup takes without the computer locking up (screen saver, standby mode, or whatever causes the lock) and then measured a following duplicate backup (with little change to the drive's contents) with the locking enabled? |
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