X-bit labs

Roundup: Nine 2.5-Inch Hard Disk Drives with 40GB Storage Capacity (page 5)

Category: Storage

by Alexey Volkov , Nikita Nikolaichev

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

Performance in WinBench 99

We use WinBench to check the drives in a “desktop computer” simulation. We format the drive in NTFS with the OS’s tools (leaving the cluster size default, i.e. 4 kilobytes) and in FAT32 with Paragon Partition Manager (32KB cluster).

First let’s examine the results of the tests which don’t depend on the file system, as they measure the physical characteristics of the drives.

Disk Access Time

The Seagate ST94811A boasts the best “average access time”, while the Seagate ST94011A is second. The rest of the drives are more than 1 millisecond behind in this parameter.

Disk Transfer Rate

The results of this test depend on the areal density of the platters.

The Hitachi HTS548040M9T00 has the maximum speed on the first tracks, and the Hitachi DK23FB – on the last tracks (this model has two platters, which leads to a high speed at the “end” of the disk).

The Fujitsu MHS2040AT with its low rotational speed and two low-density platters can’t compete with the other drives.

WinBench 99 also allows taking down data-transfer speed graphs for each drive, which you can view by the following links:

• Hitachi DK23FB (graph);
• Hitachi HTS548040M9AT00 (graph);
• Samsung MP0402H (graph);
• Seagate ST94011A (graph);
• Seagate ST94811A (graph);
• Fujitsu MHS2040AT (graph);
• Fujitsu MHT2040AH (graph);
• Fujitsu MHT2040BH (graph);
• Toshiba 4026GAX (graph).

Now let’s examine the results of the drives in two subtests (Business Disk Winmark and High-End Disk Winmark) in FAT32.

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The Fujitsu MHT2040BH has the highest High-End Disk Winmark score, while the Seagate ST94811A is the best in Business Disk Winmark. Both hard disk drives with a 2MB cache buffer took the last two lines in the table of results.

Next go the numbers for the NTFS file system:

Click to enlarge

The leader is different: the Seagate ST94811A has got the best scores in both High-End and Business Disk Winmark subtests. We should acknowledge, though, that the Fujitsu MHT2040BH has the same result as the winner in High-End Disk Winmark. The Fujitsu MHS2040AT is again the slowest device.

You can examine the WinBench results in more detail here.