If you folks are like me, you spend a fair amount of time using MetaStock. And you've probably noticed that some activities such as Explorations, drag your system to it's knees. I spend a lot amount of time building and optimizing computers and seeing it's effects on applications. I thought I would share some of the things I've found. Note - all of my work is with local data. As noted in the help files, upgrading your CPU is one of the nicest things you can do for your system. In particular, the new generation of Hyperthreading CPUs make the system go faster. Also, as noted in the help files, more memory helps. Moving progressively from 256M to 512M to 1G memory allowed me to see progressive performance increases. In particular, I find that repeated Explorations get faster - the results are cached and multiple runs seldom access the hard drive. Of late, I've been focussing on hard drive performance. Moving to the popular drives with 8M cache allowed me to see a performance increase. The next step was the new Western Digital Raptor 36G drive that came out a couple of years ago. I just had the opportunity to replace the 36G Raptor with a 74G Raptor. Below are the timings I've been able to achieve - based on a typical Exploration using about 6000 securities: IDE drive with 8M cache - 120 secs. 36G WD Raptor - 50 secs. 74G WD Raptor - 28 secs. Memory (repeated run) - 20 secs. ALL of this said, souping up your PC allows you to spend more time USING MetaStock and less time waiting on the PC. As usual - your mileage may vary...

I have a close friend who's machine is identical to mine in most respects (processor, class of motherboard, video). He's on a RAID-0 with the Raptor 36G drives and reports slightly better performance than mine. BUT - that's on differentl aps than what I run. Most of his work is on Photoshop. (Lots of sequential data as opposed to lots of random access data). He's chiding me to pick up a second Raptor 72G to see if I can out-perform him. I told him that I would pass for now. Sata-II is due out this year and should the drives start showing up as well, it could make life even more interesting. For me, though, the performance means I spend more time USING MetaStock and less time waiting on the PC.