Pure Hard Disk Performance - IPEAK

We begin our usual hard disk drive test session with Intel's IPEAK benchmarking utility. We first run a trace capture on Winstone 2004's Business and Multimedia Content Creation benchmark runs to catch all of the IO operations that take place during each test. We then play back each capture using RankDisk, which reports back to us a mean service time, or average time that the drive takes to complete an IO operation.

IPEAK Business Winstone 2004 - Pure Hard Disk Performance

The first batch of 3.0Gbps hard drives that we tested gave us results, which were scattered all over the charts for the IPEAK tests with Western Digital's WD1600JS, taking the majority of the wins over the other two 3.0GBps drives. This time around, Seagate's 500GB 7200.9 takes place half way down the list at 541 IO operations per second.

Let's take a look at Content Creation performance.

IPEAK Content Creation Winstone 2004 - Pure Hard Disk Performance

The Seagate drive jumps to the 3rd spot on the list for the Content Creation Winstone IPEAK run at 389 IO operations per second.

IPEAK Average Read Service Time

As far as Read Service times go, Seagate's drive reports 13.9ms on average, which is just a fraction of a millisecond slower than the WD1600JS, but more than 2ms quicker than the HD160JJ.

The Test Overall System Performance - Winstone 2004
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  • Spacecomber - Monday, October 24, 2005 - link

    The results from these benchmarks were about as mouthwatering as a rice cake with nothing on it.
  • jeffrey - Monday, October 24, 2005 - link

    Titling the article "Mouthwatering Benchmarks" and then reading the mid-pack performance lowers the author's credibility.

    The drive is big, but it uses lower density plattters, has the highest idle heat, has the highest heat under load, and is 2.6 decibels louder than a 10Krpm Raptor when transferring. Overall performance was mid-pack and not mouth watering.

    ****************************************************
    It would have been a solid review without the title.
    Much better than recent video card reviews.
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  • ss284 - Monday, October 24, 2005 - link

    Pretty dissapointing figures considering all the marketing crap that was posted a couple weeks back as a full fledged preview on anandtech. The drive neither runs cooler or quieter or faster than the previous generation of drives. Other than the 5 year warranty this drive has nothing over a model from a competing manufacturer, most notably hitachi. Im also suprised that the 160 gb model wasnt tested, since it has 160 gb platters, instead of the 125 in the 500gb model.
  • LoneWolf15 - Monday, October 24, 2005 - link

    quote:

    Other than the 5 year warranty this drive has nothing over a model from a competing manufacturer, most notably hitachi.
    One other thing that it has over Hitachi: Seagate (along with WD and Maxtor) offer advance replacement in the event of failure. Hitachi, unfortunately, does not.

    It may sound like a minor gripe, but if I'm trying to save a client's data off a failing drive, it's nice to have the replacement drive handy. Since I've also had a drive company lose a drive on me in the RMA process (not a common occurrence, but I've had it happen) I feel far more secure having advance replacement. I do agree though that performance specs are not as good as expected; the difference is small enough that I'd save money and buy the previous Seagate 7200.8 drives.
  • smn198 - Monday, October 24, 2005 - link

    Please benchamrk the 160GB model
  • Penth - Monday, October 24, 2005 - link

    "you're better off working with a 15K RPM Raptor for now."

    I think you meant 10K RPM Raptor, unless WD just dropped a bomb.

    First Post.

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