Performance in Intel IOMeter: Workload-Emulating Patterns

In real workload-emulating patterns everything proved up to our expectations: the average access time determines all results here. The HDDs didn’t show very diverse results (that is why we didn’t include the results for DataBase pattern where we simply got a bunch of identical curves) and their ratings also appeared pretty predictable.

Only the 80GB model from the 180GXP family manages to outperform the previous IBM HDDs generation due to the “cut-down” platters used in this solution. The 40GB 180GXP model runs as fast as 120GXP, also due to the partial use of the platter surface. The fastest model within the 180GXP family is only 10% faster than the slowest one.

60GB HDD with the biggest access time falls significantly behind the others. Strange as it might seem, but IBM hard drives with 8MB buffer appeared a little slower than their classical fellows. Of course, this difference does not depend on the buffer size. For some reason all the drives that acquire larger buffer usually get a slightly worse access time (this is true for the drives of all HDD makers except Seagate). Anyway, a performance difference of less than 1% can and should be neglected.

In WebServer pattern without any writes at all, the drives proved even more unanimous. Like in the previous case, the leader is the 120GXP representative due to its better functioning under high workloads. Old firmware version of the 60GB 180GXP model is scaled according to the workload just the same way as the 120GXP solution does, while the newer firmware versions appear less “hard-working” here. However, it will not affect the performance, as even in case of a heavily loaded server the amount of simultaneous requests will hardly ever exceed 16.