Multi-Threaded Read & Write Patterns

The multi-threaded tests simulate a situation when there are several (from one to four) applications working with the drive at the same time. The depth of the outgoing request queue is varied from 1 to 8. We’ll discuss read and write diagrams for a request queue of 1, as most representative of real-life operation modes.

Passport 250GB demonstrates a convincing victory at any number of read requests in the queue.

In case of 1 thread of write requests, Passport 250GB is a little bit ahead of the 120GB model. However, when the number of simultaneous threads increases, the situation changes dramatically. In case of two or more threads, Passport 120GB slows requests processing by 1/3, while our newcomer runs almost at the same pace proving highly efficient with multiple write threads. When a large number of files is copied on an external hard drives in a few steps, the second chunk of data doesn’t usually start copying before the first one has been copied completely. This helps to avoid performance drops caused by simultaneous work with several competing data threads. Passport 250GB doesn’t have this drawback and shows equal speed with a single as well as multiple threads, which is a very rare occasion.