Testbed and Methods

The following testing utilities were used:

• IOMeter 2003.02.15
• IOMark 0.30b14
• FC-Test 1.0
• PCMark 2004
• PCMark 2005
• PCMark Vantage

Testbed configuration:

• ASUS P5WDG2 WS Pro mainboard
• Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 processor
• IBM DTLA-307015 system disk, 15GB
• Radeon X600 graphics card
• 1GB DDR2-800 SDRAM
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2

We installed the generic OS drivers for the drives and formatted them in FAT32 and NTFS as one partition with the default cluster size. For some tests 32GB partitions were created on the drives and formatted in FAT32 and NTFS with the default cluster size, too. The drives were connected to a Promise SATA300 TX4302 controller installed into a PCI-X slot. If necessary, the HDDs were switched from quiet (with Advanced Acoustic Management enabled) into ordinary operation mode.

Performance in IOMark

We use our internal tool called IOMark for low-level tests of hard disk drives.

• Data-transfer graph for Hitachi Travelstar 5K500, 500GB
• Data-transfer graph for Samsung SpinPoint M6, 500GB
• Data-transfer graph for Western Digital Scorpio Blue, 320GB
• Data-transfer graph for Western Digital Scorpio Blue, 500GB

The following diagram compares the HDDs’ read speeds at the beginning and end of the partitions created on them.

Yes, this is the test that proves that the Samsung drive has a higher recording density than the HDDs with 160GB platters. The advantage is especially conspicuous at the end of the partition. The 500GB model from Western Digital is even better, though. Its read speed is higher by almost a third – just as its recording density is higher by a third!

Next let’s see the HDDs process data in their cache. You can click the following links to view the graphs while we will discuss a diagram showing the top speeds:

• Cache speed of Hitachi Travelstar 5K500, 500GB
• Cache speed of Samsung SpinPoint M6, 500GB
• Cache speed of Western Digital Scorpio Blue, 320GB
• Cache speed of Western Digital Scorpio Blue, 500GB

Every HDD reads from the buffer somewhat faster than writes to it although the difference is very small. No HDD has problems with large data chunks. The 500GB model from Western Digital is in the lead, notching a burst read speed of over 200MBps. It is followed by the Hitachi that has a burst speed of almost 170MBps. The Samsung and the 320GB Western Digital are only as fast as 100MBps. This must be due to the fact that the HDDs came with SATA150 mode enabled.