X-bit labs

External Hard Disk Drives Roundup: 160GB Storage Capacity (page 7)

Category: Storage

by Aleksey Meyev

[ 02/27/2008 | 09:51 AM ]

Disk Response Time

In this test IOMeter is sending a stream of requests to read and write 512-byte data blocks with a request queue of 1 for 10 minutes. The total number of requests processed by the HDD is over 60 thousand, so we get a sustained response time that doesn’t depend on the HDD’s buffer size. The results are sorted by read response time.

The Seagate and the Maxtor OneTouch III have the best response at reading. These two brands belong to the same company now and the drives are likely to have identical HDDs inside. I will check out this supposition in the next test that depends heavily on the HDD model. Note also that these two HDDs also have the worst response time at writing.

As for the influence of the interface, it is easy to see that the Teac HD-15 delivers similar performance with both USB and eSATA. The FireWire-connected ZIV Pro has a smaller read response but also a considerably higher write response than when it is connected via USB.