Accelerate Your Hard Drive By Short Stroking

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Test Setup, Flash SSDs and Access Time

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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

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System Hardware
Performance Measurements	c't h2benchw 3.6, PCMark05 V1.01
I/O Performance	IOMeter 2003.05.10Fileserver-Benchmark, Webserver-Benchmark, Database-Benchmark, Workstation-Benchmark

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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

Latest Videos FromTom's Hardware

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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.