interpet the hard drive test

[keith1961]

I ran the performance test several times changing things around. I have 2 250Gb SATA 3.0gb drives. I was shocked at my results. Mine a Intel GNT945 vs. the about the same thing sample from passmark. Read, mine=40.9 theirs=605.9 Write, mine=41.5 theirs=5.9 RW, mine=4.5 theirs=105.2. I thought I was supposed to have about the fastest drives around. What is the problem? Surely it isn't because I have such large drives? What can I do?

[David (PassMark)]

You need to look at a cross section of results to get an idea about what is typical. Not just one machine.

Are your drives running in RAID 0 config?

Even if the SATA interface is 3.0Gbit/sec, it doesn't matter. Hard drives are not usually limited by the interface speed. 0.5Gbit/sec is probably enough.

The machine you compare yours to might have been running with a very large cache. Or it might have even been a RAM disk.

I thought I was supposed to have about the fastest drives around

Highly unlikely.

15K RPM drives in RAID 0, with perpendicular recording & 4Gbps Fibre Channel interfaces are around the best gear at the moment. This doesn't sound like what you have.

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David

[FrankFlorida]

I have on my System a 10,000 RPM Raptor / Board DFI Lan Party 875pro with on board SATA / no Raid.
The tests says it has ONLY 3.2 MegaByte Read speed....
same with the other Hard Drive Tests results with this PC/Drive.
All show way to low. In fact my old laptop shows faster HartDrive results.
I assume there is something wrong with this test software....
...or do I miss something?

[David (PassMark)]

If you are getting only 3.2MB/sec there is somethng wrong with your system. You should get about 40MB/sec.

Check the cables, BIOS, free space, disk fragmentation, mother board device drivers and any background tasks that might be using the hard dive at the same time as your tests.

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David