by Andrey Kuznetcov
08/09/2006 | 09:41 AM
After the manufacturers of notebook’s hard drives have overcome the psychological barrier of 100 gigabytes, the further growth of storage capacity is now regarded with more calm. The announcement of 200GB hard drives of 2.5” form-factor has not caused a big sensation and such devices are not selling freely yet. So, we’d better talk about drives with a smaller, yet still impressive, capacity.
<%BANNER[article]%>This time we are going to discuss a large hard disk drive, too, even though its 120GB of storage is not a record today. This drive has one important advantage. You can buy it if you want. It is the MHV2120BH model from Fujitsu, and we will compare its performance with a few 120GB drives from other manufacturers and with a 160GB drive from Seagate that we have tested in our labs earlier (see our reviews entitled High-Capacity 2.5-Inch Hard Disk Drives: Chasing the Leader and Seagate Momentus 5400.3 160GB Hard Disk Drive with Perpendicular Recording Technology). These drives all have the same spindle rotation speed of 5400rpm and 8 megabytes of cache memory (for the detailed specifications follow this link).
This device has a Serial ATA interface which is steadily and inexorably forcing the classic IDE out from our computers. The drive supports the NCQ command set. This model has a storage capacity of 120GB, but the series includes models with capacities of 40, 60, 80, and 100GB, too. The spindle rotation speed is 5400rpm; the average seek time is 12 milliseconds. The cache buffer is 8MB big. The drive produces little noise at work thanks to its electric motor running on fluid dynamic bearings. The dimensions of the device are 9.5x70x100mm; its average retail price is $200 US.
The following testing utilities were used:
Testbed configuration:
We installed the generic OS drivers for the drives and formatted them in FAT32 and NTFS as one partition with the default cluster size. I connected the Fujitsu MHV2120BH to a Promise SATA150-TX2 controller in Write Through mode.
The low-level IOMeter test helps explore the speed characteristics of a hard disk drive as it is doing sequential reading and writing. The test utility is sending a stream of read/write requests with a request queue depth of 4. The size of the requested data block is changed each minute, so we will see the dependence of the linear read/write speed of the drive on the size of the data block.
So, the first diagram shows the linear read speed of the hard drives. As you see, the Fujitsu cannot compete in this parameter with the Seagate ST9160821A, which features the perpendicular recording technology. But while it cannot challenge the leader, it leaves the rest of the opponents behind when processing large data blocks. On data blocks smaller than 8KB the Fujitsu MHV2120BH looks poor, though.
The linear write diagram doesn’t differ much from the previous one. The Fujitsu MHV2120BH is good at processing large data blocks, being second only to the Seagate ST9160821A, but it is again slow when working with small data blocks.
Here is the data-transfer graph of the Fujitsu MHV2120BH hard disk drive:
The data-transfer speed is near 41MB/s at the beginning of the disk. The graph has a jagged shape due to the use of the adaptive formatting technology in the tested drive.
The rest of the WinBench 99 tests were performed on a 32GB partition created on the drive. The FAT32 file system comes first.
The High-End Disk Winmark is the more important score of the two, so the Fujitsu MHV2120BH is placed second in the diagram, behind the Samsung HM120JC.
There are just inconsiderable changes in the diagram when we switch to NTFS. The Fujitsu MHV2120BH is again second, behind the Samsung HM120JC. The performance of the drives is generally lower here than in FAT32.
The Fujitsu MHV2120BH has average results in the test of read speed at the beginning and end of the disk. It is slower than both drives from Seagate, but faster than the other two drives.
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.
Now we format the drives in NTFS and repeat the tests once again.
The results of the Fujitsu MHV2120BH in this test are depressing. It has the lowest speed at writing (creating) the file-sets in NTFS.
The diagram with the results of reading the file-sets shows that the Fujitsu MHV2120BH has a really high read speed. It is in fact the fastest of all if you average the results of all the five patterns.
The Fujitsu is the slowest drive in this Copy Near test, although it is not much slower than the nearest opponent.
The last diagram shows the results of the drives in the Copy Far test in NTFS. The Fujitsu MHV2120BH is again slow. It manages to outperform the drive from Western Digital in the Programs and Windows patterns that consist of a lot of small files, but loses to it in the other three cases.
We once again make use of PCMark04 to see a fuller picture of the performance of tested hard disk drives. This program benchmarks the performance of the drive in four different modes: Windows XP Startup is the typical disk subsystem load at system startup; Application Loading is the disk activity at sequential starting-up and closing of six popular applications; File Copying measures the HDD performance when copying a set of files; Hard Disk Drive Usage reflects the disk activity in a number of popular applications. These four parameters are used to calculate the overall performance rating according to the following formula: HDD Score= (XP Startup Trace x 120) + (Application Load Trace x 180) + (File Copy Trace x 28) + (General Usage x 265) . You can refer to the article called PCMark04: Benchmark for Hard Disk Drives? for details about the benchmark.
We ran each test ten times and averaged the results which were then represented in tables and diagrams that follow below.
Having an average result, the Fujitsu MHV2120BH finds a place in the middle of the Windows XP Startup diagram.
The Fujitsu MHV2120BH shows nothing exceptional in the Application Loading test, either. It is the least effective of all the participating 120GB hard drives and is only ahead of the Seagate ST9160821A.
The Fujitsu drive has the lowest File Copying score. That’s not what we’d want to have from it, of course.
Hard Disk Drive Usage is the only test of PCMark04’s in which the Fujitsu MHV2120BH has a good result. It takes the second place here.
In the diagram with the overall scores of the drives the Fujitsu MHV2120BH is deservedly placed the last but one. This agrees with the results of the previous four tests.
The release of yet another 2.5” hard disk drive model broadens your and computer manufacturers’ choice. The results of our tests suggest that the Fujitsu MHV2120BH is no record-setter when it comes to performance alone. Its speed characteristics are rather mediocre, so you won’t be interested in this model if you need the fastest components available. But though it cannot make it into the Guinness World Records book, the drive is not too far slower than its opponents. The difference is really negligible for practical applications, and in some cases the Fujitsu MHV2120BH looks even preferable. This drive has a Serial ATA interface and supports Native Command Queuing, which makes it a good choice for new computers, and the rest of the operational properties of the drive are no worse than those of competing products from other manufacturers.