Best Benchmark for real world windows 7 os and program performance

[alohascott]

Aloha
what is the best benchmark to use to see how the drives will actually perform?

I see some people mention 4k reads

what should i look at regarding writes?
it seems like it might be a bigger number since it would lay down the write in an somewhat optimized way but the reads will just have to come from wherever they are.

also can I actually increase performance of regular hard drives by doing a slow format with a certain settings?

my current OS drives are short stroked and it seems to help some.

thanks
scott

 

[tecmo34]

You have your standard four free drive benchmark programs: ATTO Benchmark, CrystalDiskMark 3.0, HDTune & AS SSD Benchmark.

Your overall system can be checked by Futuremarks' PCMark 7 and/or 3DMark 11.

 

[alohascott]

what is the as ssd benchmark
i see that occasionally and it gives lower performance numbers then atto which i belive is not real world performance but the best possible number under the best possible conditions.

is pc mark 7 most popular and 3dmark for gamers or something?

 

[photonboy]

All new drives in the same class perform nearly identical.

A top-end SSD is much faster than a hard drive but costs a lot more. Some people buy an SSD for Windows then install their games and media to a second hard drive, like this:

1) OCZ Vertex 3 120GB (Windows and programs), and

2) 1TB or 2TB Western Digital "GREEN" hard drive (games, media and backups)

...back to Hard Drives:

If you want a good drive for Windows get any newer 7200RPM drive such as http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=57432&vpn=WD5002AALX&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1367

**Note that NCIX even has the speeds already listed at the bottom.

The 1TB drive (930GB) stores 2x the data for a little more money but there's no point buying it if you know you won't use it.

 

[alohascott]

thanks but i already have the drives

some i have now

some are in the mail

no money for other drives

i just wanted to know which ones to use