What's a good benchmark for A-V scanning time?

Agree it could make interesting reading.

Suggestions: Add "amount of HD used" and "processor type & speed".

I'll try to add my data later.

very good, John. for mine,

Used Disk Space: 70.8GB

Processor Type & Speed: SAMSUNG HM160HII, Intel Core Duo CPU T7250, 2GHz

Machine: HP Pavilion dv6700 Notebook PC

I'll consolidate the responses and post that, too.

Thanks!

Deleting the temporary internet files before you start is a big help too.

I think this PC only takes about 1hr (Virging Broadband PC guard...comes with the package) but I don't sit around watching it.

Del

Laptop

HD Size: 53Gb (41Gb used)

Intel Duo T5500, 1.66GHz

AVG FREE

Daily scan

Scan time: Approx. 2 hrs.

Note that, although I haven't done any quantitative experiments recently, the scan settings & scan software priority can have a big impact. This poll can perhaps come up with a "feel" for the time taken by different products on different systems, but there are lots more hidden variables.

Desktop

HD Size: 75Gb (50Gb used)

Intel Celeron, 2.4 GHz

AVG FREE

Daily scan

Scan time: Approx. 6 hrs.

I think the much longer time is attributable (at least partly) to the fact that the HD on my desktop has had maybe 10 years of installing all manner of apps, demo packages etc. (very few of which are actually used), and some stuff going back to the early '90s, as each time I upgrade the PC or HD I copy or clone the old HD. This means that there's a much higher proportion of "infectable" files than the laptop, which is about 1 year old, and only has the apps I use day-to-day.

I have AVG set to scan only infectable files (default setting).

whoa! you mean even defragmenting the drive won't improve performance?

HD is defragged when necessary. Just went to defrag it to check, and analysis came up with "You do not need to defrag ....".

Further to the number of objects scanned, my laptop scans about 0.9M, while the desktop does 1.7M (so that's definitely not the full explanation for the time difference!).

Just checked AVG %CPU usage while scanning (from Task Manager) & it's about 40% on each. Desktop is running about 70 processes, laptop about 80. Each has 2Gb RAM.

Got to go out for a while soon, but later I'll try running a benchmark test on each, to see if that throws anything up.

Can anyone recommend a (free) benchmark test?

In order for defrag to effectively increase productivity a few other maintenance operations need be performed prior a defrag.

1. Reduce page file to minimum

2. Delete all but most recent restore point

3. Run disc clean up

Then defrag, first will longer time then reboot, repeat sequence until time to complete degrag is less than three minutes. Depending on system attribute and user manipulations a daily defrag may be useful especially if used for audio/video rendering then apply above scenario after each session.

Thanks, I'll give it a try when I get a chance.

I agree stevem. In fact, "number of objects scanned" should be the among the first to be considered!

I'll check mine and report that, too. thanks!

"number of objects scanned" is a double edge sword.

Dependant on both the A/V softwares virus science and the number of your system files.

Preliminary results:

System: 2GHz Athlon/2 GB RAM/7200 rpm SATA3 HD/XP Pro SP3

Scanner: AVG Free (automatic setting)

Scanned 335,332 objects (14 GB) in 1:44:39

Scan rate : 53.4 objects/second.

Scanner : SUPERAntiSpyware Free

Scanned : Mem(423), Registry(7666), File(22,601) = 30,690 objects in 39 minutes.

Scan rate : 13.1 objects/sec

(The rate number is low as there were sometimes thousands of objects in a registry 'item' as reported by SAS)

Scanner : Spybot Search & Destroy

Scanned : 489,332 bot hashes in 9:35

Scan rate : 851 objects/sec

Scanner : ClamWin Free (527,727 signatures)

Scanned : 6636 Directories, 70,139 files, 17,532 MB data

Time : 9968 secs (2.7 hrs)

Gentlemen, so far, this is how it looks. I'd appreciate and welcome data / comments from some more "testers" . please try right-clicking and saving the image in your machine. The actual file is really very legible. here, it's shrunk beyond recognition

Hello langyaw,

Cool thread.

Using Avira=free apx 1hr-20minutes thorough scan including rootkit per 350GB with Malwarebytes concurrent plus dbl encryption layered rolling ISP/with 4 firewalls, having spatial characteristics. We don't trust in chance nor believe it occurs randomly.

Shalom

I can't see where you are going here, you also need to know which programming language is used in building the software......even which version.

If an identical working program, that finds the same number of viruses, is written in C, or C+ or C++, or Forth, or Pascal or Assembler, generally the assembler version will run up to 100 times faster that anything else. Also the code is generally very compact too, which helps performance.

Then there is the possibility of say writing in C++, analysing what modules "are the slowest" and re-writing just these modules in assembler, but leaving the rest of the program in C++. This will dramatically speed up the C++ (or any other high level language) program.

But at the end of the day all will find all of the viruses and erase them.......but with radically different timings....

To my mind, the only way is to watch the good magazines, where tests are made in comparison with each other, on specially prepared hard disks with identical viruses on them, which one finds the most, how long did it take.....?

That is why I bought Kaspersky, its similar to many other top products in WHAT it finds, in the top 3 usually with less than a part of 1% difference to several others, but runs faster........and is easily bought on ebay (I need a license for 4 PCs) at a remarkably low price......

AVG free is quite a lot worse than the top 3 or 4 generally, but with a good hardware firewall, and a good software firewall, it served me for several years after I gave up on Symantec - slow, slow slow.......

I have an AMD 4400 X2 with 4GB memory and 1.2 Terrabyte of storage.

We use symantic av 10.0.3 right now. With every new release, the scan times increase. We scan thousands of machines. We have found NO andivirus that catches every virus, so the techs use others when they have difficulties. Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy are the favorites for finding the most problems. Scan times vary widely. I have found that 3 things affect scan times significantly, other than the total number of files on the drive.

The total number of files in any given folder when that folder is scanned

The amount of fragmentation of the drive

The amount of processes running on the Pc

We usually use Hijack This to kill unnecessary processes on startup. There's always a lot of them.

With around 30 Gb af data on a P4 we average about 45 minutes with Symantic with some machines taking as much as 4 hours. Is that enough confusion?

I resemble resent that sentence of yours:-

"We have found NO andivirus that catches every virus"