 | Hard drives |
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CNET Labs' test suite for hard drives consists of two separate subsystem-level benchmarks, as well as timed file-transfer tests for external hard drives.
| Test bed |
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We test all hard drives using a 1.7GHz Pentium 4-based Dell Dimension 8100 with 256MB RDRAM, an Nvidia GeForce2 Ultra graphics card with 64MB of DDR SDRAM, a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 60GB Ultra ATA/100 as the primary hard drive, and Microsoft Windows XP.
We run all tests with Windows' display properties set to a 32-bit color depth at a resolution of 1,024x768 and an 85Hz refresh rate. Windows' screensaver is disabled. Additionally, we disable any applications that launch at start-up and set all power-management settings for maximum performance, with no components allowed to power down. We disable System Restore. We run Windows Update, then turn off automatic updating and disable error reporting. We enable write caching on the disk if the hard drive and the interface support it. We enable DMA-transfer mode if the hard drive and the interface support it. Unless otherwise noted, all other settings remain at their defaults. Each test is run a minimum of three times, rebooting between each test.
- Internal ATA/100 drives are tested as the master drive on the test bed's integrated secondary IDE channel, with no other drives attached to the secondary channel.
- Internal ATA/133 drives are tested as the master drive on the primary channel of the ATA/133 interface card bundled with the drive. If an ATA/133 interface card is not supplied with the drive, we use a Maxtor ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card, with no other drives attached to the channel. Before testing, we confirm that we are using the most recently available firmware and drivers for the interface card.
- Internal and external SCSI drives are tested using the interface card bundled with the drive. If a SCSI interface card is not supplied with the drive, we use an Adaptec SCSI Card 29160N, with no other drives attached to the card. Before testing, we confirm that we are using the most recently available firmware and drivers for the interface card.
- External USB 1.x drives are tested using test bed's integrated USB ports, with no other devices attached to the ports.
- External USB 2.0 drives are tested using the USB 2.0 interface card bundled with the drive. If a USB 2.0 interface card is not supplied with the drive, we use a Maxtor USB 2.0 PCI adapter card, with no other devices attached to the card. Before testing, we confirm that we are using the most recently available firmware and drivers for the interface card.
- External FireWire drives are tested using the FireWire interface card bundled with the drive. If a FireWire interface card is not supplied with the drive, we use the OHCI-compliant IEEE 1394 host controller that came bundled with our test bed, with no other devices attached to the card. Before testing, we confirm that we are using the most recently available firmware and drivers for the interface card.
| Benchmark tests |
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WinBench is designed to test a PC's various subsystems. We run WinBench's Business Disk WinMark, High-End Disk WinMark, disk-transfer rate, disk-access time, and disk CPU utilization tests, all of which isolate performance of the hard disk subsystem and evaluate the full range of performance of a hard disk. For WinBench testing, we set the hard drive as a single NTFS partition using the full capacity of the drive.
HD Tach 2.70
The HD Tach benchmark is designed to test a PC's hard disk subsystem. We run HD Tach's read-burst-speed, read-speed, and write-speed tests, which evaluate the full range of performance of a hard disk. For HD Tach testing, the hard drive is unformatted and unpartitioned.
CNET Labs' file-transfer tests
For external hard drives, we run additional file-transfer tests. We set the hard drive as a single NTFS partition using the full capacity of the drive.
- Large-files-write test: We time how long it takes to copy 251MB of large files from the test bed's Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 60GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive to the external hard drive and report the results in megabytes per second.
- Small-files-write test: We time how long it takes to copy 100MB of small files from the test bed's Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 60GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive to the external hard drive and report the results in megabytes per second.
- Large-files-read test: We time how long it takes to copy 251MB of large files from the external hard drive to the test bed's Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 60GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive and report the results in megabytes per second.
- Small-files-read test: We time how long it takes to copy 100MB of small files from the external hard drive to the test bed's Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 60GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive and report the results in megabytes per second.
