Is my drive normal?

exe163

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
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I installed my new 640 WD scorpio blue 5400 drive into my MBP. I ran some tests on it. For some reason the read/write rate is very inconsistant and quite a bit lower than what I am seeing online. Is there something wrong with my drive?

I am running boot camp with only 100gb Windows partition. Benches are taken right after defrag.

P.S. I just ran HD tune with my Intel SSD. It reads 190mbs +- 10mbs, so I am guessing there's nothing wrong with my system. Is it possible the cause of the slow down on my drive is because the way it is partitioned with two types of formats, NTFS and HFS?

hdd.png
 
definitely not normal...

worse case the drives having difficulty reading from itself, which means you've got a defective drive.

best case is maybe Windows is indexing it? You're not actively writing to the drive while you bench it are you?
 
Yeah would bet on the indexing or some other background task.
 
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Okay, I ran HD tune 5 more times in safe mode. Only once was I able to get a consistent curve. The other 4 are relatively good but with 1-3 dips down <10mbs like in the picture. Is it normal enough? I really don't want go through the hassel exchanging it if I don't have to.

hdd2.png
 
The dips are normal; your harddrive is like a large big slow truck; once it gets moving and doesn't have to take any turns it could go 100km/h; but once turns are involved; think less than 1 kilometer per hour; or 1MB/s.

So while benchmarking if a few seeks occur, it'll drop the speeds below 1MB/s for a fraction. That is normal, and a good indication of why HDDs are not good system devices running your operating system. Doesn't mean the HDD is faulty, though.
 
The dips are normal; your harddrive is like a large big slow truck; once it gets moving and doesn't have to take any turns it could go 100km/h; but once turns are involved; think less than 1 kilometer per hour; or 1MB/s.

So while benchmarking if a few seeks occur, it'll drop the speeds below 1MB/s for a fraction. That is normal, and a good indication of why HDDs are not good system devices running your operating system. Doesn't mean the HDD is faulty, though.

Oh come on now. Nothing wrong with using a mechanical drive for the OS. Nothing at all. And quite frankly as long as you get the higher end 7200 RPM WD Blacks etc, your machine will be snappy as long as the rest of the specs as comparable..
 
No i don't say EVERYBODY has to use an SSD. But people have to understand that HDDs are very very very slow for random access.

Basically, consumers love big numbers; so only look at the 100MB/s number and not at IOps. Not that i blame them; its not their fault. Ultimately, marketing has done its job very well; the whole PC industry is all about confusion, obfuscation and misleading their customers. It is the formula to success.

But yes 0.1-0.9 MB/s is normal when the access pattern is not sequential; which is common on system disks.
 
No i don't say EVERYBODY has to use an SSD. But people have to understand that HDDs are very very very slow for random access.

They really are. I just built a speedy system for someone and used a Samsung F3 as the boot drive. It can handle it's own, but when it comes down to anything multitasking related it falls to it's knees. You can't do other things when the drive is doing anything at all without feeling slowdowns. On the SSD, we can run virus scan, install things, archive, surf the web, watch movie, play music, all at once, etc, and not even a hitch it's just always blazin. I think I've been spoiled.
 
They really are. I just built a speedy system for someone and used a Samsung F3 as the boot drive. It can handle it's own, but when it comes down to anything multitasking related it falls to it's knees. You can't do other things when the drive is doing anything at all without feeling slowdowns. On the SSD, we can run virus scan, install things, archive, surf the web, watch movie, play music, all at once, etc, and not even a hitch it's just always blazin. I think I've been spoiled.

I agree completely. Just try to copy 2 separate large folders at the same time you will find that it takes a lot longer. I really hope SSD will come down in price in the next few years to replace mechanical completely.
 
run the benchmark and read us IOps. tells us more than juss a read from hdtuner.

but that seems to be the correct speeds for a 5400rpm laptop drive. anything on health?
 
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