Test Setup, Flash SSDs and Access Time
| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processors | 2x Intel Xeon Processor (Nocona core), 3.6 GHz, FSB800, 1 MB L2 Cache |
| Platform | Asus NCL-DS (Socket 604), Intel E7520 Chipset, BIOS 1005 |
| RAM | Corsair CM72DD512AR-400 (DDR2-400 ECC, reg.), 2x 512 MB, CL3-3-3-10 Timings |
| System Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB, 120 GB, 7,200 RPM, 8 MB Cache, UltraATA/100 |
| Mass Storage Controller(s) | Adaptec RAID 5805, 8x SAS, FW + Driver 16343 |
| Networking | Broadcom BCM5721 On-Board Gigabit Ethernet NIC |
| Graphics Subsystem | On-Board Graphics, ATI RageXL, 8 MB |
| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Performance Measurements | c't h2benchw 3.6, PCMark05 V1.01 |
| I/O Performance | IOMeter 2003.05.10 Fileserver-Benchmark, Webserver-Benchmark, Database-Benchmark, Workstation-Benchmark |
| System Software and Drivers | |
|---|---|
| OS | Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, Service Pack 1 |
| Platform Driver | Intel Chipset Installation Utility 7.0.0.1025 |
| Graphics Driver | Default Windows Graphics Driver |
Flash SSDs For Comparison
For comparison purposes, we used a Mtron Pro 7500 SLC enterprise flash SSD, as well as a mainstream Samsung 64 GB flash SSD.
Mtron’s Pro 7500 is a 3.5” drive based on SLC flash memory. This is one of the more serious enterprise flash SSD products on the market.
Samsung’s 64 GB SLC flash SSD is a consumer product that has been used in various notebooks such as the Lenovo X300. We decided to use it as a comparison drive to represent a decent mainstream flash SSD.
Access Time
Although short stroking doesn’t get hard drives anywhere the access times of flash SSDs, we found that their access times still decrease by 40% in the case of the Ultrastar 15K450 SAS HDDs, and by an amazing 50% in the case of the Deskstar 7K1000.B SATA drives. The advantages are similar when the drives are configured in RAID modes. Since no future hard drive will be able to significantly shorten today’s access times, short stroking is an excellent technique for improving performance in a very noticeable way. Even the desktop 7K1000.B shows access times that are quicker than those of 10,000 RPM drives.
You know, clicking on this article redirected me to a "Antivirus 360" popup which then said that my computer was infected. My fat ass - I have NOD32.
You guys might want to check where your ads are coming from - only matter of time until one day someone infect themselves.
i just noticed that also, running adscan and virus scan.
Not sure what you guys are experiencing. Running AVG here and no issues. But I'll report it just to make sure. Thanks for the heads-up.
It's odd that you report short-stroking as a process of acceleration. I usually employ short strokes if I'm trying to delay the satisfaction of my I/O needs.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Interesting article.
I do wish they had a similar to for the WD's and Seagates just to see what kind of boost the higher density platters will provide and maybe you won't lose as much capacity in the process.
Another thought would be for the tool to also allow you to format the one partition for performance but still allow you to use the remaining capacity as you see fit. If I want to try and keep everything in one section I could still get the benefits but if I need to, I can use the remaining room and know that I will get a performance hit.
HOWTO - take your new hard disk drive. Create a 32 Gb partition, from the first LBA block. Format it. Don't forget to enable NCQ if it isn't enabled by default. Store your test data on said partition. Create another partition with the leftover space, where you'll store, say, backups.
Would you mind repeating your tests without using the Hitachi-specific tools, but a mere partitioning tool? 'far as I know, drives access platter sectors sequentially (platter 0 sector 0, platter 1 sector 0, etc.) thus partitioning correctly should have the same effect... That's certainly what I see with my own drives.
Well the results are logical and make sense. Cant say it a new concept, but it is nice to see it on paper.
I got the same popup. The site it came from was "cleanyourpc-now.com".
It spawns a pretty convincing looking explorer window which appears to scan all your drives. It even makes what looks like a bubble pop up above the tray telling you viruses were found.
It's always been known that using less of a hard disk makes it faster but that is hardly likely to make it perform on an SSD like level. HD's are done for when it comes to high throughput work.
If want to make a HD peform better then instead of emptying it and only using 10% of the capacity which is somewhat impractical use a smart defragger that puts all the frequently used data together at the fast end of the disk. That will give you most of the performance most of the time without the disadvantage of a tiny disk size.
Not sure what you guys are experiencing. Running AVG here and no issues. But I'll report it just to make sure. Thanks for the heads-up.
This didnt show up at all on my vista 64-bit that I just tried, but did show up on an older xp machine I used when I first read this article. Bad news.
Didn't get anything here too, I using vista 32-bit but my friend using xp and got some pop up, and now he running his AVG.
I would like to see this in comparison with a RAID of SSD's. Comparing a RAID of short stroke with a RAID of SSD's, to see how they compare... This is very interesting and intriguing information.
Nice article. Didn't expect this kind of stuff from Tom's Hardware.
im using xp and no popups for me. What browser are using those who get it?
It is expectable that dual-head harddisk is coming - one for the outermost track, one for otherwise.
Or may triple head?
I didn't get the anti-virus ad pop up. Then again I'm running Linux and Firefox 3.0+
No popups on Firefox 3.0.7 / Mac OS X 10.5.6
I find it odd that they recommend the crappy onboard RAID in most motherboards...I suppose server/workstation boards have better host controllers equipped onboard.
I ran into the Antivirus 360 problem two days ago visiting Tom's home page; ran AVG and turned up nothing on my computer. IE7 + Vista 64
Back to topic. I think a large Raid array made up of 2.5" hybrid drives or SSD + 2.5" drives is better than an all SSD array. Most accessed data are on the SSD and less accessed on 2.5"