X-bit labs

2.5-Inch External Hard Drives with 120GB Storage Capacity (page 6)

Category: Storage

by Aleksey Meyev

[ 04/02/2007 | 01:58 PM ]

Workstation Pattern

The Workstation pattern simulates the typical load on a workstation at request queue depths up to 32. This test was performed on the full capacity of the drives as well as on a 32GB partition created on them.

To calculate the overall performance rating of a drive in this test, we use the following formula:

Performance = Total I/O (queue=1)/1 + Total I/O (queue=2)/2 + Total I/O (queue=4)/4 + Total I/O (queue=8)/8 + Total I/O (queue=16)/16 + Total I/O (queue=32)/32.

The HD-227U2 wins this test, outperforming its opponents greatly at small request queue depths. The HDD from Western Digital finds itself occupying the bottom place again. This device seems to have been optimized for sequential reading and writing only.

The speeds are higher when we limit the address space to 32GB. The HD-227U2 leaves first place to its FireWire-interfaced mate. The WD Passport is the last one again.