X-bit labs

250GB Hard Disk Drives Shootout: 30 HDDs Tested (page 10)

Category: Storage

by Sergey Romanov

[ 11/15/2007 | 11:36 AM ]

The File-Server pattern imitates a heavy load on a data server. Besides a smaller percentage of writes in comparison with the Workstation pattern, it features a larger load range, but this doesn’t prevent the WD2500JS from becoming the winner again. This time it is just a little faster than its pursuers, though.

The competition has become tougher: the Maxtor 6B/7B250S0 have an overwhelming advantage starting with four simultaneous requests. The Seagate ST3250824AS isn’t much worse than the leader at small requests queue depths, and is faster at high loads thanks to NCQ. The Seagate ST3250823AS performs better, too, as its Native Command Queuing is somewhat more efficient. The two drives from Samsung lost their positions, the Serial ATA version being only superior to the dense group of the Maxtors.

The last of the IOMeter tests is a pattern that simulates a Web-server. When calculating the rating, the weights are shifted towards heavier loads. Write operations are missing here.

It is the average seek time that’s important here, and the Hitachi 7K250 has no rivals in this parameter irrespective of the interface. Native Command Queuing doesn’t help the Hitachi HDT722525DLA380 and the Samsung SP2504C, which proved to be the worst drive in this test even. The Seagate ST3250823AS beats the younger ST3250824AS that has been faster in the previous patterns.

Deferred writing is the strong point of Samsung’s HDDs – it is going to be a good factor for them in the other tests.