Performance in FC-Test

Now we will check the real-life performance of the hard disk drives in our own 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. The real-life speed of the drive is then calculated. This utility gives you the most objective picture of performance because it emulates the real operating situations of a 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 examine the results we recorded in FAT32.

The first diagram shows the file-set creation (i.e. writing) time. Alas, the Fujitsu MHV2120BH is no performance leader here. It has the worst result in each of the patterns.

It’s quite different with the read speed diagram: the Fujitsu MHV2120BH is abreast to the Seagate ST9160821A, leaving the rest of the drives behind.

The Fujitsu MHV2120BH is the slowest of the participating drives in the Copy Near test (the file-sets are copied within the same disk partition) due to its rather low write speed (as we have seen above).

The Fujitsu is poor in the Copy Far test, too. It is the slowest with any of the file-sets we use.