X-bit labs

Roundup: Nine 2.5-Inch Hard Disk Drives with 40GB Storage Capacity (page 3)

Category: Storage

by Alexey Volkov , Nikita Nikolaichev

[ 01/20/2005 | 06:01 PM ]

Performance in Intel IOMeter

IOMeter is a traditional opener of our test program. We use this utility to determine the “low-level” read and write speed of the drive in Sequential Read and Write patterns. Besides that, we use a Workstation pattern to check out the efficiency of the disk subsystem under a load typical for a workstation.

Sequential Read & Write Patterns

IOMeter is sending a stream of read/write requests to the disk, the queue length equaling four requests. Every minute the size of the data block changes, so in the end we get a dependence of the linear read (write) speed of the drive on the size of the processed data block.

Red marks the worst results, blue marks the best.

The Toshiba 4026GAX is the best with data chunks up to 4KB inclusive, its speed being well above all expectations, but it is overtaken by the Hitachi HDS548040M9AT00 at 8KB blocks.

The two SATA drives from Fujitsu have acted up, too. The MHT2040BH model handles small data blocks (up to 4KB) rather badly, while the MHT2040AT is the worst of all at reading 8KB and larger blocks (that’s expectable, though, as it has a lower spindle rotational speed than the others, 4200rpm).

It wouldn’t do putting the results of all the drives into a single diagram, so we divided them in groups according to the manufacturer. You can view the graphs by the following links:

• Hitachi (graph);
• Samsung and Toshiba (graph);
• Seagate (graph);
• Fujitsu (graph).

Let’s see if things are different at writing.

Fujitsu’s drives have gathered almost all worst results here, again. Unlike at reading, the MHT2040AH is the worst with small blocks now. The Toshiba 4026GAX has the highest write speed on small data chunks – linear access in small data blocks seems to be a strong point of this drive.

The Hitachi HTS548040M9AT00, although couldn’t show a good speed with small data blocks, takes the first place on large blocks (above 8KB) like in the previous, reading test.

The diagrams can be viewed by the following links:

• Hitachi (graph);
• Samsung and Toshiba (graph);
• Seagate (graph);
• Fujitsu (graph).