Preliminary Tests
As usual, before examing the performance of these drives and the controllers used, we ran some preliminary tests using HD Tach 3.0.1.0 and IOMeter 2004.07.30. These synthetic benchmarks results are best-case results - meaning you'll likely won't see the same kind of results in real world situations. However, they do serve their purpose well - providing us with some idea of what kind of performance these drives have to offer.HD Tach
Below, you'll see HD Tach test results - these are graphs for sequential transfer rates. To simplify things a bit, we've decided to separate read and write results. If you want to see the full graph, just click on the images - that would bring up a 1024 x 768 JPG version.
(click the picture for a clearer graph)
| J-Micron | Intel | |||
| Deskstar 160 GB | Caviar 160 GB | Deskstar 160 GB | Caviar 160 GB | |
| Random Access (ms) | 13.1 | 13.1 | 13.3 | 13.2 |
| CPU Utilization (%) | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| Average Read (MB/s) | 65.7 | 65.7 | 64.4 | 66.6 |
| Average Write (MB/s) | 66.3 | 67.0 | 64.7 | 67 |
Some variations are expected, but overall we think both the J-Micron and Intel ICH8R controller is on a par with each other. The Hitachi Deskstar 160 GB has slightly lower average read and write with the Intel's ICH8R - CPU utilization is much higher (4 percent compared to 1 percent on the J-Micron controller). The Caviar works just as good on the Intel ICH8R as on the J-Micron controller, average read is slightly higher but nothing to write home about.
Of course, that's with the drive running as single drive. The true and more interesting test are when the drives are configured into RAID arrays. Let's see how they fare. The ICH8R results are taken with the setting Volume Write Back cache set to 'Disabled'.
(click the picture for a clearer graph)
| J-Micron | Intel | |||
| Deskstar 160 GB - Array | Caviar 160 GB - Array | Deskstar 160 GB - Array | Caviar 160 GB - Array | |
| Random Access (ms) | 13.5 | 13.5 | 13.5 | 13.2 |
| CPU Utilization (%) | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| Average Read (MB/s) | 112.0 | 111.8 | 111.7 | 110.7 |
| Average Write (MB/s) | 88.0 | 86.5 | 103.5 | 97.5 |
With Volume Write Back cache disabled, the ICH8R controller results differ little from the J-Micron's. Transfer rate fluctuate wildly, at least until we hit areas above 180 GB. Looking at the table, we can see the Intel ICH8R is slightly more efficient in terms of CPU utilization (by 1 percent). The more noticeable difference is average write - the ICH8R controller allowed the Hitachi Deskstar to edge out the Western Digital Caviar. Just in case you're wondering, that's about 10 - 11 percent improvement.
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