Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 IDE vs AHCI & Baracuda ES.2
Wed, 10/17/2007 - 08:47 — Tomas Hlatky
HD Tune enables to measure transfer rate and provides Hard Disk information, which include information about Hard Disk health using S.M.A.R.T. technology and Hard Disk surface control. HD Tune displays information regarding Hard Disk temperature. As according to me this program didn't work with tested HDDs very precisely, I used this program only to display the temperature of the Hard Disk as well as to get information about tested HDDs. The temperature of the Hard Disk was low, even after lengthy testing, as you can see it recorded on a single screenshots. Though there were 4 Hard disks installed, without additional cooling, the temperature never exceeded 35°C.
HDTachRW program enables to measure average sequential reading and writing speed, Burst Speed, CPU utilization and average access time.
H2benchw runs as a Win32 console application (at the command prompt) under Windows NT, 2000 and XP. It accesses the hard drive directly by opening it as a phyisical drive. H2benchw ignores partitioning and accesses the disk directly, so that all data will be lost when writing on the disk. H2benchw measurement consists of five components: interface transfer rate, data integrity check, zone measurement, the measurement of access times and application profiles. From this selection I chose the last mentioned measurement - simulation program to test the drive in real situations and applications: swapping, installation, Word, Photoshop, copying and F-Prot. I expected this test to reproduce HDD work in a real setting.
The HDD tests in PCMark05 simulate the usage of a hard disk in real applications, such as starting Windows, opening applications, copying files, and using applications. At the end of the test, you get the results from each performed test together with an overall test score.
Looking at above measured results, I was able to made several conclusions. I'll start from the beginning: Regarding sequential reading and writing, ST3500320AS is the considerably fast drive; I would even say that it is probably one of the fastest disks on the market. Anyway, in application tests I've noticed, that performed results were comparable with results of Seagate drives of previous generation. I have to highlight excellent performance in sequential operations. On the other hand, I haven't noticed significant difference after changing off IDE mode to AHCI mode, also confused with a fact that H2benchw and PCMark05 gave me contradictory results. Not even HDTachRW considered ST3500320AS in AHCI mode as the best drive. ST3500320NS performance was as I expected, it was little bit slower than measured desktop drive, but anyway I have to admit that ST3500320NS is the high performing drive.
Seagate Barracuda ST3500320AS - IDE
Seagate Barracuda ST3500320AS - AHCI
Seagate Barracuda ST3500320NS - AHCI
HDTachRW program enables to measure average sequential reading and writing speed, Burst Speed, CPU utilization and average access time.
Seagate Barracuda ST3500320AS - IDE
Seagate Barracuda ST3500320AS - AHCI
Seagate Barracuda ST3500320NS - AHCI
H2benchw runs as a Win32 console application (at the command prompt) under Windows NT, 2000 and XP. It accesses the hard drive directly by opening it as a phyisical drive. H2benchw ignores partitioning and accesses the disk directly, so that all data will be lost when writing on the disk. H2benchw measurement consists of five components: interface transfer rate, data integrity check, zone measurement, the measurement of access times and application profiles. From this selection I chose the last mentioned measurement - simulation program to test the drive in real situations and applications: swapping, installation, Word, Photoshop, copying and F-Prot. I expected this test to reproduce HDD work in a real setting.
The HDD tests in PCMark05 simulate the usage of a hard disk in real applications, such as starting Windows, opening applications, copying files, and using applications. At the end of the test, you get the results from each performed test together with an overall test score.
Looking at above measured results, I was able to made several conclusions. I'll start from the beginning: Regarding sequential reading and writing, ST3500320AS is the considerably fast drive; I would even say that it is probably one of the fastest disks on the market. Anyway, in application tests I've noticed, that performed results were comparable with results of Seagate drives of previous generation. I have to highlight excellent performance in sequential operations. On the other hand, I haven't noticed significant difference after changing off IDE mode to AHCI mode, also confused with a fact that H2benchw and PCMark05 gave me contradictory results. Not even HDTachRW considered ST3500320AS in AHCI mode as the best drive. ST3500320NS performance was as I expected, it was little bit slower than measured desktop drive, but anyway I have to admit that ST3500320NS is the high performing drive.
