Results: Storage
Storage makes up our final battery of tests. Previously, we weren't specifically benchmarking our workstations' storage subsystems, but I felt like we should add more targeted metrics, particularly given the add-in RAID card and SSDs included with this T5600.
AS-SSD
Sequential read speeds as reported by AS-SSD aren’t that different, but write performance is dramatically better on the Precision. Dell's drive array writes almost eight times faster.
Iometer
Iometer gives us similar results. The 4 KB random numbers turn out to be pretty similar; it's the sequential I/O where Dell's older Samsung drives take off. In many workstation tasks (like video and audio editing), sequential access is more important than random access, especially when gigabytes of video footage need to be cut.