zero HDD time variables

[JUAN DOS]

I was zeroing a few HDD. Three were identical W-D 20G 7200rpm ATA100.

HDD #1 was zero written in 1.5 hrs on a PC with:
AMD 1700XP
512mb PC133
Onboard vid & sound on inexpensive new Biostar mobo
CDRW
Floppy drive

HDD #2 was zero written in 3 hrs on a PC with:
AMD 1200 Athlon on Abit KT7A-raid
512mb PC133 (don’t remember brand, but is “the best”)
CDRW, CDROM
Floppy drive

Note: in both instances the drive was master on IDE1, with no slave and on ATA100 cable.
The Lifeguard time estimate was accurate in both instances
The Abit machine has run perfectly for almost 2 years.

HDD#3 zero write:
To simplify the comparison, IDE and power cables on raid channel devices were pulled out.

Third 20g was put into Abit KT7A-raid machine. Lifeguard says3 hrsto zero.

I halt Lifeguard, shut down, and install 20g #3 in my test PC which has only:
Asus P5A mobo, AMD400, an old vid card, 256mb pc133, and floppy.

Lifeguard says zero task will take 54 minutes , so I let it rip!
But am still scratchin my noggin.

Can someone answer me why an old slow machine handled the task faster?

[saphalline]

Pretty strange story, maybe it has something to do with the amount of crud on Windoze? Like more crud = more zeros? :p Haha, that would certainly be consistent with what I've seen!

We've at least learned two things from this:

1) Now we all have to include HDD zero time when listing our PC specs. :D

2) You have another very good reason for keeping that ol' test PC around!

[JUAN DOS]

Perhaps I need to clarify one point.
The HDD being zero written in all cases was the only HDD installed.
Therefore Windows cannot be blamed for anything (for once).