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Please help interpret this data(comparing 2 drives)

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Please help interpret this data(comparing 2 drives)

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Just downloaded the trial version of passmark performance testing doohickey, fun stuff to mess around with, see what kind of numbers come up. When I realized it had hard drive tests I figured I would put my current boot drive up against my empty drive that I am still thinking about making my boot drive. After getting the results I am not quite sure how to interpret them, almost like the numbers along side (especially for the reading test) dont match what the graph says. Also the graphs are WILDLY different, with one hard drive (the WD2500YS) having an extremely flat (consistent) "curve" where as the other (the WD3200AAJS) has huge peaks and valleys. Thats where you guys come in, what should I take from that? My instinct tells me the more consistent results are better, but when it comes to hard drives my knowledge base is less then stellar.

WD2500YS

Read

Write

WD3200AAJS

Read

Write

Frankly I am a little bit shocked as to the completely different profiles on these graphs, but have little if any clue what that even means. Can anyone enlighten me? Which one is better? Faster? Smarter? Stronger? Better lookin.....wait what? and of course, what would make one have such seemingly erratic movement and one so consistent, I am really confused.

Thanks ahead of time for all your help everyone.

------------------------------ Phenom II 940 @ 3.5ghz w/ Rosewill RCX-Z940-SL CPU heatsink & 92mm fan~~Radeon 1Gb 4870 Toxic @ 805/1005~~Kingston Hyper x 8Gb @ 1066~~Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3~~ASUS DRW-22B1LT 22X DVD Burner with LightScribe~~WD Caviar "Blue" 320gb~~WD RE 250gb~~WD RE3 500g

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Ok so some more interesting data, this time from my "big" hard drive that I just use for misc storage

WD5002ABYS

Read

Write

breaking 100Mbs on both reading and writing, I would have thought because it is the biggest it would have been the slowest (not always the case but when compared to drives of the same model/type I as would most people expect the bigger to move slower)

Those kind of numbers im thinking it should have my OS on it

Anyone have any thoughts on it yet?

Is the one that's somewhat inconsistent your system drive? If so, everything looks fine, since your system drive drops in throughput when something else is requesting data off the drive. All of those look somewhat odd though - usually, hard drive data rates drop as you go towards the ID of the disk. Try downloading HDtune, and see what it says.

As for bigger being slower? With hard drives, all other things being equal (number of platter, spin speed, cache, and seek time), bigger will always be faster. Some of the fastest drives are small, but also have higher spin speed and shorter seek time, so they aren't completely comparable drives. In your case though, it's not surprising that the biggest is the fastest.

------------------------------ Asus P6T deluxe
i7 965 @ 4.2GHz (200*21), 1.384V
12GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 CAS 7
Reply to cjl

Yeah the 320 is my system drive, the other two are "RE" enterprise class drives i have picked up recently, so the thought is the variances depicted on the graph are less about the drive and actually the variable I didn't take into account i.e. the system itself. That makes sense, I will check out HDtune and see what that tells me. Thanks!

Which one would you put your OS on? Leave it on the "erratic" 320 or put it on the high speed 500?

On a fresh install, I'd put it on the 500. It's not enough of a difference to reinstall for that reason alone though.

------------------------------ Asus P6T deluxe
i7 965 @ 4.2GHz (200*21), 1.384V
12GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 CAS 7
Reply to cjl

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Please help interpret this data(comparing 2 drives)

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Please help interpret this data(comparing 2 drives)