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Topic A3 - Performance of Operating Systems - Coggle Diagram
Topic A3 - Performance of Operating Systems
Operating system factors
A poorly performing operating system can be extremely frustrating. Slow boot-up times, application & file loading, as well as crashing or freezing, can all happen because your operating system has not been maintained.
Some of the factors that can affect this performance include the following.
Hardware
All operating systems require a minimum hardware specification. In particular, the graphical user interface commonly used in modern operating systems requires a lot of processing power and main memory to run.
Additionally, every application you run will require processing power and memory assigned to it by the operating system. If your operating system runs out of RAM/CPU it will start to reduce in performance and can lead to freezing and crashing as the computer struggles to effectively share the available resources.
Another issue is caused by the fact that over time your hard disk becomes fragmented. This means that the data that makes up your files & applications are split in different locations across your hard disk.
This affects your operating system performance as when you ask for it to load an application or a file the operating system will find it harder to locate all the data required for those applications & files and so will slow down the loading time.
Malware
Malicious software, such as viruses, can hinder the performance of your operating system.
They do this by corrupting data, affecting network traffic and disabling or taking over various functions of the operating system.
This can cause your system to slow down significantly and cause it to crash. It can even damage your system enough to cause it not to work without a completely fresh reinstall of the operating system.
Virtual Memory
We looked at virtual memory in a previous lesson. We know that is a portion of the hard disk that is reserved as a backup to your main memory for when you no longer have any available RAM.
However virtual memory is nowhere near as efficient as main memory and so using it will lead to reduced performance. This is especially true where the operating system is having to constantly switch data between main memory and virtual memory. This is known as “thrashing” and has a massive degrading effect on computer performance until the cause is corrected (usually due to RAM becoming far too exhausted).
Another issue is where the pagefile (the area of the hard disk reserved for virtual memory) is too small and so it cannot support main memory effectively.
Utility Software
When managing and maintaining a computer system, utility software is extremely important. It performs all sorts of useful tasks that can keep your system working in good order. Luckily, operating systems come with a variety of helpful utility programs pre-installed.
Each utility program is designed to perform a single (or perhaps a couple) of specific tasks in maintaining the performance of your computer system. The utility program you choose is based entirely on what you need to do.
We’ll look at a few different examples of utility software, their impact on the computer system, as well as the factors that can affect the performance of utility software.
Disk Defragmenter
Hard Disk Drives (note: not Solid State Drives) are prone to fragmentation which negatively affects disk read/write times. The disk defragmenter will analyse the hard disk and regroup data so that data relating to the same application or file are in the same location of the hard disk.
If you do not regularly run the disk defragmenter and your hard disk becomes heavily fragmented then running this utility can take several hours. You shouldn’t use the computer during this time so this can be a problem.
The defragmenter can be slowed down if any applications are running, including background programs and it also takes longer for a large hard disk with a lot of data being stored.
Backup
If the data on our hard disk is damaged (such as by a virus) we often use a backup to recover the lost data. Backup utility software can help simplify and automate the backup process to make it easier to recover.
Backups can take a long time in a number of situations. The more data you are backing up, the longer it will take, a fragmented hard drive can slow down backup performance, viruses and malware can also slow down the backup and corrupt it entirely.
Where you are storing the back up can also cause a problem. Backing up to cloud storage requires a long time to upload the backup, also, backing up to an external disk can be slower depending on the connection used (USB 3.0 is faster than USB 2.0).
Disk/Registry Cleaner
Over time our hard disk becomes cluttered with data that we do not use, such as temporary files and old unused applications.
Disk cleaner utilities will identify data that can be removed in order to save hard disk space that can be used for newer data. The registry cleaner will remove old redundant registry entries, such as from deleted software programs.
Both of these can improve performance, by reducing read/write disk times. Though this really would only show a marked difference if you have an excessive amount of redundant data/registries to remove.
Disk & registry cleaners are generally quick tools to use. The more you have to clean up the longer it will take and other applications running can slow down performance somewhat. A heavily fragmented hard drive can have an impact too.
Software Updates
Software running on your system, including the operating system, need regular updates in order to keep them secure, to access the latest features & to remove any bugs. Doing this manually is a time-consuming task so software update utility software will manage the updating of your software automatically.
Automatic software updates are downloaded over the internet and so rely on a fast internet connection. If you don’t schedule your updates to happen regularly there may be a lot of updates to download which will take a long time and cause poor internet performance while they’re downloading.
Anti-Virus
We’ve seen this lesson that malicious software, such as viruses, can have a catastrophic effect on your IT system. Anti-virus will detect any suspicious programs and remove them before they can cause problems. They usually do this through scanning newly added files and software, as well as through regularly scheduled scans of the storage devices connected to your system.
The size of your storage device, the amount of data being used and how fragmented it is, will be the most major factors that make an anti-virus scan take longer. Other applications running simultaneously can also interfere with the scan and cause it to slow down. Lastly, existing malware on the system may interfere with your anti-virus and affect its performance.
Firewalls
This application will monitor the traffic coming into and out of your computer system (via its ports) over a network to look for anything suspicious. This might be hackers or malware for example. It will block off any suspicious data to prevent harm being caused.
Firewalls don’t specifically suffer from performance issues in terms of speed, though they can slow your network speed for other activities. Malware may target your firewall though to prevent it from working effectively and open security holes that can be exploited by a hacker or other malware.