X-bit labs

Three 2.5-Inch Hard Disk Drives with 120GB Storage Capacity (page 4)

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 02/13/2007 | 11:19 AM ]

Database Pattern

In the Database pattern the drive is processing a stream of requests to read and write 8KB random-address data blocks. The ratio of read to write requests is changing throughout the test.

We built three diagrams for different request queue depths to illustrate the performance of the HDDs in this test.

The first diagram represents the most common case when the queue is only one request deep. It’s clear the Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 is poor in this test, “competing” with the Fujitsu for the ignominious last place. The Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS, on the contrary, is among the leaders. The Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI has satisfactory results.

The request queue depth increasing to 16 requests, there are no big changes in the ranks. The Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS is still among the best whereas the Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 is the slowest again. The results of the Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI are average.

The request queue depth is at its maximum of 256 requests, but there are still no changes. The Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 is an outsider while the Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS is a leader. The Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI doesn’t show anything exceptional; its performance is average.