Scan speed & computer power

How dependent on a computer's resources (cpu & ram) are scanners? I'm
going to make some large scanned files 100 - 400+ mb, and need to
figure out if I can hook the scanner up to an older computer (1,000 mhz
Celeron cpu & 512 mb ram). Additional post processing & printing would
be done after transferring the files via ethernet to a more robust box.
So, how much muscle do scanners need?

"mick" wrote in message
oups.com...
How dependent on a computer's resources (cpu & ram) are scanners? I'm
going to make some large scanned files 100 - 400+ mb, and need to
figure out if I can hook the scanner up to an older computer (1,000 mhz
Celeron cpu & 512 mb ram). Additional post processing & printing would
be done after transferring the files via ethernet to a more robust box.
So, how much muscle do scanners need?


I would say scanners are very much affected by the speed and ram in the
computer.
They are also affected by the speed of the hard drive and the amount of free
space on the hard drive.
A 7200 RPM drive is better that a 5400 RPM. You need two to three times free
space as the size of the scanned file size. A 400 MB final TIFF would need
around 1 GB of free space on the hard drive.

But a Celeron 1 GHz with 512 MB ram should be fine. If the hard drive is up
to the task.
Just don't have the computer doing other tasks while scanning.

--
CSM1
http://www.carlmcmillan.com
--

On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:57:47 -0500, CSM1 wrote:

"mick" wrote in message
oups.com...
How dependent on a computer's resources (cpu & ram) are scanners? I'm
going to make some large scanned files 100 - 400+ mb, and need to
figure out if I can hook the scanner up to an older computer (1,000 mhz
Celeron cpu & 512 mb ram). Additional post processing & printing would
be done after transferring the files via ethernet to a more robust box.
So, how much muscle do scanners need?


I would say scanners are very much affected by the speed and ram in the
computer.
They are also affected by the...snip
datapipe between the scanner and the MoBo: when 1GHz Celeron was
corporate wishlist, SCSI2 was mature vs USB1.1 vs 2.0 vs IEEE1394 were
still emerging. Memory was PC100 SDRAM vs current DDR. ?MHz ISA slots
were making way for 32bit 33MHz PCI slots. MoBo FSB may be locked at 66
or 80 or 100MHz. So recognize the bandwidth and velocity constraints of
your peripheral's I/O as well as the MoBo's chokepoints as well as the
focus on muscle in your wintel box. But even in the bad old days of
MSWin98 (and too impatient to wait for 98SE) people were getting the job
done.
Also, maxing up the memory will mean quicker raw processing in RAM with
fewer page file swap file /writes to /reads from/ the HD - a real
stem-winder thought with the upper limit of your image range.
Regards,
Theo

Thanks for the info. CSM1, you mention the need for multiple times of
available HD space as the expected file space. What's that about? And,
Theo, your points about the size of the data pipe are well taken.