Performance Analysis And Benchmark Of Hard Drive Brands

This is the performance report of various famous hard drive (HDD) brands and models which have been tested and benchmarked, and published in this post. The brands which have been analysed include hard disk drives manufactured by Seagate, Western Digital, Sony and legacy Samsung and Maxtor.

Models tested:
– Western Digital WD Scorpio Blue 500 GB  (WD5000LPVT)
– Western Digital WD Caviar Green 1 TB  (WD10EZRX)
– Western Digital WD Passport Essential SE 1 TB
– Seagate Barracuda 320 GB  (ST3320413AS,  Barracuda 7200.12)
– Seagate Momentus SpinPoint M8  500 GB  (ST500LM012) [former Samsung SpinPoint M8 HN-M500MBB]
– Sony External Hard Drive HD-E1  1 TB  (Carries Seagate Momentus ST1000LM024, former Samsung Spinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB)
– Maxtor Basics Portable  250 GB

Benchmarking Tools: CrystalDiskMark v3.0.1, v3.0.2, HD Tune Pro 5.00
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit, 64-bit

Setup:
Test file used with CrystalDiskMark benchmarking tool was 2 GB in size. Sequential read/write, 512k random read/write, 4k random read/write and 4k QD32 read/write have been tested. Each test was repeated six times to get the precise results. Minimum, average and maximum read and write speeds, and average access times have been benchmarked using HD Tune Pro 5.00. Additionally, all the hard drives carried NTFS file system.

Results:

Western Digital

1- Western Digital WD Scorpio Blue  500 GB

Minimum Write Speed:  30.3 MB/s
Minimum Read Speed:  31.7 MB/s

Average Write Speed:  69.2 MB/s
Average Read Speed:  70.0 MB/s

Maximum Write Speed:  89.8 MB/s
Maximum Read Speed:  90.0 MB/s

Average Access Time:  19.3 ms (Write), 19.1 ms (Read)

2- Western Digital WD Caviar Green  1 TB

Minimum Write Speed:  35.9 MB/s
Minimum Read Speed:  36.6 MB/s

Average Write Speed:  102.9 MB/s
Average Read Speed:  103.3 MB/s

Maximum Write Speed:  151.7 MB/s
Maximum Read Speed:  152.6 MB/s

Average Access Time:  20.4 ms (Write), 20.2 ms (Read)

3- Western Digital WD Passport Essential SE  1 TB

Minimum Write Speed:  29.5 MB/s
Minimum Read Speed:  29.8 MB/s

Average Write Speed:  31.0 MB/s
Average Read Speed:  31.5 MB/s

Maximum Write Speed:  31.1 MB/s
Maximum Read Speed:  31.9 MB/s

Average Access Time:  18.9 ms (Write), 18.7 ms (Read)

Seagate

1- Seagate Barracuda  320 GB

Minimum Write Speed:  29.9 MB/s
Minimum Read Speed:  30.0 MB/s

Average Write Speed:  77.1 MB/s
Average Read Speed:  78.1 MB/s

Maximum Write Speed:  103.2 MB/s
Maximum Read Speed:  103.9 MB/s

Average Access Time:  15.0 ms (Write), 14.8 ms (Read)

2- Seagate Momentus SpinPoint M8  500 GB

Minimum Write Speed:  49.3 MB/s
Minimum Read Speed:  51.5 MB/s

Average Write Speed: 84.0 MB/s
Average Read Speed:  85.9 MB/s

Maximum Write Speed:  109.5 MB/s
Maximum Read Speed:  110.5 MB/s

Average Access Time: 22.2 ms (Write), 22.0 ms (Read)

SONY
1- Sony External Hard Drive HD-E1 1 TB

Minimum Write Speed:  17.6 MB/s
Minimum Read Speed:  18.1 MB/s

Average Write Speed: 28.9 MB/s
Average Read Speed:  29.3 MB/s

Maximum Write Speed:  29.2 MB/s
Maximum Read Speed:  29.4 MB/s

Average Access Time:  17.7 ms (Write), 17.5 ms (Read)

Maxtor
1- Maxtor Basics Portable  250 GB

Minimum Write Speed:  28.1 MB.s
Minimum Read Speed:  28.4 MB/s

Average Write Speed:  28.3 MB/s
Average Read Speed:  28.8 MB/s

Maximum Write Speed:  28.8 MB/s
Maximum Read Speed:  29.1 MB/s

Average Access Time:  16.3 ms (Write), 16.1 ms (Read)