The Shop > Electronics & IC Programing
32 bit or 64 bit
sorveltaja:
--- Quote from: Rob.Wilson on June 04, 2010, 12:42:49 PM ---When you format a hard drive is the data actually gone . can it be retrieved ?
thanks Rob
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Hard drive must be over-written with 1 and 0's, or destroyed mechanically, if needed to make sure, that there is no traces of previous data.
However, those are most extreme ways.
If the hard drive hasn't been treated that way, it should be possible to retrieve at least some of the data.
spuddevans:
Ok, I'll start of by saying that I am not an ex-spurt ( former drip ) but what I ( almost ) know I will tell.
--- Quote from: Rob.Wilson on June 04, 2010, 12:42:49 PM ---What's the benefits of a 64 bit system over a 32 bit system ?
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One of the primary benefits is that the computer can make use of much much more memory. Under 32bit windows it can only use 3Gb (possibly 4 if you do some tinkering ) but even then the total amount any one program can use is limited to below that. However, under 64bit windows, that memory limit is not there.
This memory issue doesnt bother most folk who are just surfing, emailing and general wordprocessing type activity. But move into editing video, esp' HD, heavy photo editing, 3D CAD, playing the latest games, and other high-demand processing activities and 64bit operating systems make more sense.
The other thing to take into account is that most CPU's are now 64bit, this means that if you are running a 32bit operating system you are most likely not getting the full use out of your CPU, whereas a 64 bit operating system will be able to make full use of it.
--- Quote ---When you format a hard drive is the data actually gone . can it be retrieved ?
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The short answer is - it depends. If you format a hard drive all you are actually doing is deleting the infomation of what and where all the data was on the drive. Kinda like taking a book and replacing the table of contents or index with blank pages. Until you write new data to the formatted hard drive, pretty much all of the old data should be recoverable. When you write new data to the formatted hard drive it will then over-write what was previously there making it nigh-on impossible to retreive.
If you want to remove the data on a hard drive so that no-one can recover it you can get software that will write over every part of a hard drive with one's, then with zero's, and will do that as many times as you want it to. ( but be prepared for a loooooooooooooong wait )
--- Quote ---How many times can you format a hard drive ?
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Pretty much unlimited, that is, until the hard drive itself breaks down. All you are doing when you format it is writing a new blank "table of contents", the result of formatting a Hard Drive is no more physically demanding for the drive than just writing or a file to it.
Hope this helps explain it a bit
Tim
sorveltaja:
Addition to that original question:
Most of the programs, that many of us are used to, are still 32-bit. Some heavier softwares (might)have support for 64-bit, such as servers and 3D-modelling.
It depends so much on what purpose you intend to use the computer.
64-bit operating system itself isn't the solution. Hardware + proper drivers plays an important role on that game.
That babbling is based on my experience with a laptop, that has win7, dual cpu, and 4 Gb ram. It also has a rather weak display adapter, when using 3D software, if compared to my desktop, where all is 32-bit.
MrFluffy:
64bit architecture is worth having if the machine is set up to use it but its all still quite new in places and still filtering down to the grass roots of programs. I have a 64bit cpu server here and most of the stuff running on it takes advantage of that but there are still some (proprietory) applications that are 32bit version only and have to be run in 32bit compatibility mode. Its not night and day but it does run some of the more calculation only intensive stuff (hash calculation work mostly) noticeably quicker compared to another 32 bit based machine that sits in the rack above it that used to do the job before it.
Outright cpu clock speed and gpu (graphics card) speed would have a much more marked improvement on speed over a change in actual architecture, because lots of stuff will just stay in legacy 32bit mode for many many years to come, but when we get a new cpu it tends to be faster, the motherboard has improvements to its chipsets to feed the cpu faster and we add a bit more ram while we're at it so you turn it on and think "Wow this 64bit thing is the bomb" :headbang:
If you want to make sure nobody can recover your hard drive data and want a foolproof method, take it apart and smash the platter (the silver shiney weird cd looking part) with a hammer. You'll get some nice sticky strong rare earth magnets out of it which are handy round the shop to hold drawings etc as part of the destruction, and nobody is ever going to recover a hard disk from a smashed platter no matter how specialist they are :thumbup:
You can securely wipe with dban (www.dban.org) etc which is a lengthy (>8 hrs on average) process, or there is a faster process (up to 8 times as fast) which uses something built right into the drive firmware itself if its new enough called ATA Secure Erase, you can access it various ways but this one is fairly user friendly...
http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml
If your needing to get some data back, there are programs and specialist recovery firms about. They can even rebuild the failed drive with new heads and electronics to get back lost data but this doesn't come cheap. I had one rebuilt last year because a company had no backups, and their lost data was worth a lot more than the £800 charge to have it go for specialist rebuild with new heads in a clean room. One of mine got fried in a lightning strike on our powerlines which fried the ups etc and only needed a new circuit board hence £200 recovery fee...
kwackers:
One of the other things worth considering is if your computer is Von Neumann architecture then the code and data word lengths are usually the same (although instructions can allow for embedded data).
What this means is the code size for a given piece of code increases for 64 bit and if the code cache is the same size can result in more cache thrashing and potential cache stalls.
It's quite difficult to say whether or not something will be faster in 64 bit, probably the most important factor is the format of the majority of the data. At work we write a lot of 128 bit stuff - but the data is nearly always arranged as 4x32 bit floats (maths intensive stuff).
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