Software to test HD data-transfer rate?

[GregSX]

hey board,

is there some sort of freeware utility that can test my hard drive's data-transfer rate?

i'm building a new system, and i'm planning to keep my current hard drive, but will rethink that if it will be a performance bottleneck. problem is, i don't know the specs on that hard drive.

the system i'm building will be:

Athlon 1.2 GHz/266
Asus A&V 133 mobo with KT133A chipset
256 MB SDRAM
Visiontek Geforce3
Creative Soundblaster X-Gamer 5.1

Thanks to everyone for their help!

 

[lhgpoobaa]

Well, HDtach is a popular one
gives u burst speed, acess time and a continuous transfer rate graph for the entire drive capacity.
BUT
judging by your kick ass system if you keep an older drive you are REALLY doing yourself a disservice.
i reccomend AT LEAST a 7200rpm drive and ATA100 otherwise your drive will be a serious bottleneck.
i have an IBM 40gig 60GXP. very fast and sweet drive. quiet too
i reccomend that.

I would show you some apathy, but i just cant be bothered.

 

[GregSX]

Thanks for the replies. I ran the freeware version of HDTach and got the following results:

Random Access Time: 14.8 ms
Read Burst Speed: 29.3 mbps

Read Speed - maximum 18095.0 kps, minimum 5458.0 kps, average 13454.4 kps

Whattya think? Time to upgrade or am I okay with these transfer rates?

 

[Ncogneto]

Its totally up to you is it performing well enough for your taste? I can tell you this one of my newer maxtor dirives gets the following results:


random access time 9.7 ms
read burst speed 58.7

Maximum 39119.0
minimum 31047.0
average 36992.1

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[camieabz]

LOL. I get these results:

random access time 15.5 ms
read burst speed 8.3

Maximum 8454.0
minimum 6495.0
average 7474.9

PII 300MHz ATA33 HDD. I didn't expect much, but seeing the results encourages me to speed up the building of my new system. I also noticed the CPU utilisation was at 87.3%

My Dad's system CPU percentage was 13.7%

Annoying or what?

<b>
"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."
</b>

 

[Ncogneto]

wow, thats pretty low you may want to check to make sure you have DMA enabled.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[lhgpoobaa]

upgrade.
thats even worse with hdtach than my old IBM 16.8GP, which is a ata33.
sure u can use that drive, but it will REALLY bottleneck your system.

i STRONGLY reccomend an upgrade which can utilise your mobo's ata100.
e.g. ibm 60GXP

I would show you some apathy, but i just cant be bothered.

 

[camieabz]

I tried to enable DMA on my old CD-ROM drive, it caused all sorts of hassle. I don't know what enabling DMA on my HDD will do.

Quantum Fireball 6.4Gb 1997 (don't know which edition).

<b>
"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."
</b>

 

[lhgpoobaa]

the stats look ok... but yeech. that cpu utilisation ugh
it shouldnt really get over 15-20% on a p2 system
mine peaks about 15% ish
definately enable DMA

im personally gonna enable athlon 1200C soon

I would show you some apathy, but i just cant be bothered.