Western Digital WD1500ADFD: King Raptor
by Gary Key on February 8, 2006 1:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Hard Disk Performance: iPEAK
We played back Anand's raw files that recorded I/O operations when running a real world benchmark - the entire Winstone 2004 suite. Intel's iPEAK utility was then used to play back the trace file of all I/O operations that took place during a single run of Business Winstone 2004 and MCC Winstone 2004. The drive was formatted before each test run and a composite average of 3 tests on each drive was tabulated in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark.
iPeak gives a mean service time in milliseconds; in other words, the average time that each drive took to fulfill each I/O operation. In order to make the data more understandable, we report the scores as an average number of I/O operations per second so that higher scores translate into better performance.
The performance of the Raptor WD1500 is extremely impressive and represents a 13% increase over the Raptor 740GD in the Business Winstone test and an incredible 33% increase in the Content Creation Winstone test. Turning NCQ on results in a hit of 8% in the Business Winstone test and 9% in the Content Creation Winstone test. Although the drive maintains excellent performance with NCQ activated we highly recommend turning it off when used in a single-user environment. While the WD1500 random access times are slightly higher than the Raptor 740GD, the overall performance of this drive is consistently better. The Samsung SP2504C provides excellent results considering the bargain pricing on the drive and leads the Maxtor 7L300S0 in most of the test results.
We played back Anand's raw files that recorded I/O operations when running a real world benchmark - the entire Winstone 2004 suite. Intel's iPEAK utility was then used to play back the trace file of all I/O operations that took place during a single run of Business Winstone 2004 and MCC Winstone 2004. The drive was formatted before each test run and a composite average of 3 tests on each drive was tabulated in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark.
iPeak gives a mean service time in milliseconds; in other words, the average time that each drive took to fulfill each I/O operation. In order to make the data more understandable, we report the scores as an average number of I/O operations per second so that higher scores translate into better performance.
The performance of the Raptor WD1500 is extremely impressive and represents a 13% increase over the Raptor 740GD in the Business Winstone test and an incredible 33% increase in the Content Creation Winstone test. Turning NCQ on results in a hit of 8% in the Business Winstone test and 9% in the Content Creation Winstone test. Although the drive maintains excellent performance with NCQ activated we highly recommend turning it off when used in a single-user environment. While the WD1500 random access times are slightly higher than the Raptor 740GD, the overall performance of this drive is consistently better. The Samsung SP2504C provides excellent results considering the bargain pricing on the drive and leads the Maxtor 7L300S0 in most of the test results.
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Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Believe me, Purav cannot wait to start testing this drive in a RAID setup.feraltoad - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
It would be great if you could include a comparison of the all 3 raptors in Raid 0. I have a 36gb Raptor and have often wondered if 2 in raid 0 would be as fast as 1 74gb raptor. Esp. now w/newer versions.Rapsven - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
The content was very informative, and as a whole, the article was very well done. But jesus christ, dude, opening your articles with quotes ticks me off to no end.rjm55 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Perhaps the quotes at the front of Gary's reviews will give you a repetoire that will include words that can be substituted for Dude. If you hate the quote just skip the first few sentences and you will not have to be bothered by the quotes.Personally I like them - the quotes set the reviews apart. It's sometimes nice to have a little education with my favorite hobby.
Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Is it the quote itself or just the fact there is one? I would appreciate some honest feedback on the subject. I like the quote as it sets the tone for the article but I also realize it really is not needed. :-)
Rolphus - Thursday, February 9, 2006 - link
I love the quotes. In particular, this one stuck in my mind, and provided an incredibly simple, single-sentence "hook" into the review which summed it up perfectly. I'd vote to keep them.johnsonx - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
I like the quotes. It makes me think of Chairman Kaga on Iron Chef (the original Japanese show, not the new Iron Chef America).Seriously Gary, keep the quotes.
fb0252 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
newbie q: the review uses the term "single user" recommending turning off native command queing in single user setting as opposed to multi user. i have a pair of wd1500s on my floor ready to be installed in our office system in Raid 0. One person at a time uses the computer but we frequently "multi-ask". do we turn of NCQ to get faster speeds in this sitaution--am I a "single user" on this computer, though much of our use is multi-asking--six programs at once e.g. doing multiple tasks.Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Hi,I am assuming your applications will be general office and the machine is not being setup as a local server. If so, turn off NCQ. It it really meant at the server-level where you have highly random and concurrent requests. I would not go with RAID 0 for an office environment as you are playing with fire in regards to data reliability. Setup you system in RAID 10 if it supports it.
Thanks....
Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
We need an edit function. "Setup your system in RAID 10 if it supports it."