X-bit labs

Mega Roundup 2: Twenty Two Hard Disk Drives with 120GB Storage Capacity (page 11)

Category: Storage

by Alexey Volkov , Nikita Nikolaichev

[ 05/09/2004 | 10:05 AM ]

Performance in WinBench 99

We use the WinBench test to check out the hard disk drives in the “desktop PC” mode. We format the disk into the NTFS file system with the system tools (the default cluster size is 4GB) and into FAT32 using Paragon Partition Manager (the cluster size is 32KB). We also perform our tests on the 32GB capacity in NTFS and FAT32 file systems (partitioning the drives with the standard Windows 2000 Disk Manager).

First, let’s check out the results that don’t depend on the file system as they refer to physical parameters of the devices. Average access time comes first:

Four best times go to Hitachi! Now it’s clear why they are so good in File Server and Web Server patterns! The drives from Seagate have the highest access times – this is the price you have to pay for their quietness. On the other hand, the drives from Samsung have better access times, but are anyway no louder than the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 (subjectively, they are even much quieter!)

Now, let’s compare linear read speeds:

The Samsung SP1213C was the best in this test, being the only drive to overcome the 60,000KB/s barrier. Of course, the adaptive formatting technology employed by Samsung allows increasing the data density per track, thus increasing the linear speed, if the combination of the platter and the head permits. At the same time, no one can guarantee that the linear speed will be, say, 60MB/s with a randomly-taken sample – it may be better or worse…

You see that drives with 80GB platters are at the top of the table, while the 5400rpm drive from Samsung and the Seagate Barracuda ATA V are the worst of all.

Traditionally, we offer you transfer-rate graphs we got with the help of WinBench 99.

• Hitachi HDS722512VLAT20 (Graph);
• Hitachi IC35L120AVV207-0 (Graph);
• Hitachi IC35L120AVV207-1 (Graph);
• Hitachi IC35L120AVVA07-0 (Graph);
• Maxtor 6Y120L0/60 (Graph);
• Maxtor 6Y120L0/80 (Graph);
• Maxtor 6Y120M0 (Graph);
• Maxtor 6Y120P0/60 (Graph);
• Maxtor 6Y120P0/80 (Graph);
• Samsung SV1203N (Graph);
• Samsung SP1203N (Graph);
• Samsung SP1213C (Graph);
• Seagate ST3120022A (Graph);
• Seagate ST3120024A (Graph);
• Seagate ST3120026A (Graph);
• Seagate ST3120026AS (Graph);
• WD 1200BB/80 (Graph);
• WD 1200JB/80* (Graph);
• WD 1200LB (Graph);
• WD 1200BB/60 (Graph);
• WD 1200JB/60 (Graph);
• WD 1200JD (Graph).

The tables were very clumsy, so you can watch them one by one by clicking the following links:

Hitachi:

• FAT32;
• FAT32 – 32GB;
• NTFS;
• NTFS – 32GB.

Maxtor:

• FAT32;
• FAT32 – 32GB;
• NTFS;
• NTFS – 32GB.

Samsung:

• FAT32;
• FAT32 – 32GB;
• NTFS;
• NTFS – 32GB.

Seagate:

• FAT32;
• FAT32 – 32GB;
• NTFS;
• NTFS – 32GB.

Western Digital:

• FAT32;
• FAT32 – 32GB;
• NTFS;
• NTFS – 32GB.