Hard Drive Performance Benchtest

[Dantoo]

I am trying to test the input/output performance of a drive under Win9X. I can't seem to track down something useful and usable that will give me a comparitive performance test.

Ideally it should be freeware or shareware and not priced at about the same as a replacement drive (for fairly obvious reasons).

I seem to be getting the odd 80GB Seagate drive that will pass all the Seatools tests but just the same are incredibly slow at giving up data. By way of example, I had one that was taking 15 minutes (yes timed and not exaggerated) just to boot to the XP desktop. All Seagate tests showed the drive as operating OK. Swapped the drive out and loaded the same image on a new drive and system performs properly now.

There are 2 more that I am now suspicious of, both in Win98 machines.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Look at anandtech's hard drive reviews and just use the programs they are using. I don't know if they are free or not though.

 

[cockeyed]

Do a Google search for "HD Tach", it is available for DL at many sites. I think this will tell you what you want to know about your HDD performance.

storagereview.com has performance tests you could compare against.

 

[mechBgon]

From the use of the word "images," I take it you can guarantee no spyware/adware/worms?

I have my own favorite disk benchmark, but no one probably wants to hear about THAT again :evil:

 

[Dantoo]

Having a look at HDTach now thanks - will provide feedback.

Mech I am always interested in your view I will listen
and yes spyware/adware/virus free. Same image used on both drives.

The prime diagnostic symptom of this type of drive failure for a user is that it takes quite a while to launch a program but then it is quite usable once its loaded into ram. Anything that requires access back to the disk causes delays at best - freezes at worst.
Like I posted earlier though, the manufacturer diagnostics indicate a perfectly healthy drive. A benchtest program will show the deficiency immediately though.

 

[mechBgon]

The seek times in HDTach should be interesting. I remember a Maxtor we had at work that behaved exactly like that... sticky actuator maybe? It passed Maxtor's PowerMax tests 100%, but real-world usage showed without a doubt that it was Seriously Messed Up?. RMA time

My benchmark is to drop a Microsoft Office Administrative Installation Point onto the drive and then install Office to the drive from this onboard AIP. Preferably the AIP would be fully pre-patched, and have a custom transform to automatically eliminate that dasm animated paperclip :frown: and the worthless Microsoft Photo Editor (Office2000 here BTW).

That test will definitely test the drive's seeks :evil: The performance delta between a WD 800JB drive and a 15k SCSI drive on this job is about 250%, and that's why I'm pretty sure no one wants to hear about it again.

 

[Dantoo]

LOL yep why do it the simple way when you can construct something you have absolute faith in.

I downloaded HDTach and there is an older unsupported version for Win9X. I have just tested it on a known good drive and got results that you might expect for the system (87.1 MB/sec burst and average 57.1MB/sec sustained). It should be sufficient for what I want so thanks again.

The only issues I have with the program that there were install issues that had to be overcome and its very limited functionality. I tried to register but the site information and methodology are abyssmal. The price of the new pro version (no use for win9X as it is W2K and XP only) is a little steep for this type of program too. Still it does precisely what I want for this limited case.

 

[Dantoo]

LOL one further point - I am still trying to work on the words for the RMA.

"and don't bother testing with the correct suite of tools because they show nothing wrong" sort of doesn't look like it will win their hearts