Real World Tests - Multitasking Performance

To provide a real world example of multitasking we use run Outlook and import 450MB of emails into an account. We then time how long it takes our benchmarking utlity to zip a single 300MB file. To compare our results we calculate the difference between the multitasked process and the single task file zip process.

Outlook + File Zip 1 300MB File
NCQ/TCQ Status
Multitasked
File Zip Only
% Difference
Hitachi T7K250
w/out NCQ
76.543
67.057
12.39%
w/NCQ
79.815
65.641
21.6%
Samsung HD160JJ
w/out NCQ
71.484
58.805
21.6%
w/NCQ
73.554
61.068
20.4%
Western Digital WD1600JS
N/A
74.371
61.182
21.6%

Very disappointing. Hitachi's T7K250 performed better than the rest in this real world multitasking test...with NCQ turned off! Now, drive manufacturers list NCQ as a native feature, but it does not seem to work too well in real world situations. As we look at products in the future, we hope to see atleast some improvement given by Native Command Queuing.

Multitasking Performance - Business Winstone 2004 Thermal and Acoustics
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  • mechBgon - Sunday, June 26, 2005 - link

    Interestingly, my old Cheetah 15k.3 still spanks my Seagate 7200.8 OMGNCQSATABBQ drive by a factor of about 2:1 on seek-intensive real-world work tasks. People with seek-intensive work to do should still explore the SCSI option if it seems like their I/O is holding up the show.
  • PuravSanghani - Sunday, June 26, 2005 - link

    All graphs should be fixed now.

    We did use Hitachi's Feature tool to enable SATA 3.0Gb/sec mode prior to the benchmarks.

    Purav
  • ArcticOC - Saturday, June 25, 2005 - link

    Was the sata2 mode enabled og the test?! This HAVE to bee done after you buy the drive.. because the deafult speed is to 150MB/sec

    software from hitachi have to be run in order to enable 300mode

    http://forum.hardware.no/index.php?act=Attach&...
  • Viper4185 - Saturday, June 25, 2005 - link

    No graphs for me either! Something is broken!
  • Souka - Saturday, June 25, 2005 - link

    That is one ugly review.

    They should pull it, fix it, then repost
  • ArcticOC - Saturday, June 25, 2005 - link

    I really hope the testers to their time setting sataII mode to the Hitachi, This ahve to be done manually by their software called "IBM feature tool", unless u do this, det disk will run at low sata 150 instead of the 300mode.

    http://forum.hardware.no/index.php?act=Attach&...

    The disk comes by deafults w/interface of only 150.. chech taht this important is used under all test.. anything else would be BS if not
  • GhandiInstinct - Saturday, June 25, 2005 - link

    My raptor still at reign.
  • SocrPlyr - Saturday, June 25, 2005 - link

    Graphs on some pages and not on others in IE6.
    Everything looks great in Firefox

    Josh
  • RMSistight - Saturday, June 25, 2005 - link

    Still no graphs for some pages! I need to read the game loading times!
  • CrystalBay - Saturday, June 25, 2005 - link

    Well looks like I'll be keeping my 120GB 7200.7 a little longer. :)

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