Performance in FC-Test

Now we will check the real-life performance of the hard disk drives with the FC-Test utility which measures the time it takes to create (i.e. write), read and copy certain file-sets which differ in the number and size of the files included, and then calculates the speed of the drive. This utility gives you an objective picture of performance because it emulates the real operating situations for the hard drive.

The Windows and Programs patterns consist of many small-size files, while the MP3, ISO and Install patterns include fewer files of a bigger size. Two 32GB partitions are created on the drives for the copy operations, and the file-sets are then copied within one partition (Copy Near) and from one partition to another (Copy Far). The creation (writing) and reading of the file-sets is done in the first partition.

We’ll first test the drives in the FAT32 file system. The first diagram shows the results of measuring the speed of creating (writing) the file-sets. For better readability, we only put the results of three out of the five file-sets into the diagrams. So, the Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI is the fastest drive among the three we’re discussing in this review. It is just a little slower than the other model from Samsung. The Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS looks good, too. The Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 doesn’t deserve any praise from us as it is the slowest of all the eight devices.

The Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI is still among the best when reading the file-sets. The Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 looks good in this test, too. It is far from being an outsider here and its read speed is higher than that of the Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS

The Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI and the Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS are roughly similar to each other and among the best devices overall when copying the file-sets within the same partition. Alas, copying files involves writing them, which is the weak aspect of the Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00. That’s why it is slower than the rest of the HDDs here.

This diagram shows the speed of copying files from one partition to another. The picture is generally similar to what we have seen above. The Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI and the Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS are again among the best devices, showing similar results, whereas the Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 is the weakest one here.