Web-Server, Fileserver and Workstation Patterns

The drives are tested under loads typical of servers and workstations.

The names of the patterns are self-explanatory. The Workstation pattern is used with the full capacity of the drive as well as with a 32GB partition. The request queue is limited to 32 requests in the Workstation pattern.

The results are presented as performance ratings. For the File-Server and Web-Server patterns the performance rating is the average speed of the drive under every load. For the Workstation pattern we use the following formula:

Rating (Workstation) = 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.

• IOMeter: File-Server
• IOMeter: Web-Server
• IOMeter: Workstation
• IOMeter: Workstation, 32GB

This pattern resembles Database at high percentage of reads as is indicated by the results: the Seagate drives are ahead at any queue depth, and especially at short queues. The difference in their firmware shows up, too. The 160GB Seagate is ahead of its 200GB mate under high loads. The Fujitsu is slow here, being inferior even to the old Seagate 7200.1.

The results of this test resemble those of the previous one: the Seagate 7200.2 drives are ahead, the 160GB model being faster than the 200GB one. The Fujitsu is the worst runner again, but falls really far behind only under very high loads.

The new drives from Seagate are unrivalled under Workstation load. The old 7200.1 is good, too. It competes with the Hitachi and outperforms the Fujitsu under low loads. It even takes third place under high loads because the Hitachi slows down to the Fujitsu’s level then.

When the test zone is limited to 32 gigabytes, the drives deliver higher speeds and get closer to each other, but the standings are the same overall. The two drives from the Seagate 7200.2 series are in the lead. The single notable difference from the previous test is that the Seagate 7200.1 has slowed down to the Fujitsu’s level while the Hitachi is obviously third.

The performance of the Seagate 7200.1 is not a surprise because its recording density and capacity are lower than those of its opponents, so the reduction of the test zone does not increase its performance much. And this is also why the low results of the Fujitsu look especially depressing.