Performance in Intel IOMeter

Sequential Read & Write Patterns

IOMeter is sending a stream of read and write requests with a request queue depth of 4. The size of the requested data block is changed each minute, so we will see the dependence of the drive’s linear read/write speed on the size of the data block.

The linear read speed diagram shows that the Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI is the slowest drive of all when processing small-size data blocks. When the data chuck gets larger, this drive becomes roughly equal to the other HDD from Samsung and to the Western Digital Scorpio WD1200VE. The Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 has a rather average speed when reading small data blocks and is only faster than the Toshiba MK1234GSX when it comes to reading larger blocks. Finally, the third drive we’re interested in, the Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS, doesn’t show anything exceptional when processing small data blocks, but becomes one of the best at reading larger blocks.

In the sequential writing test the Samsung SpinPoint M60S HM120JI still looks poor when processing small data blocks and is not much better when processing larger blocks. The Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 HTS541612J9AT00 is somewhat faster on small data blocks, but is slow on larger blocks. The Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS is the best of the three HDDs we’re checking out here. It is among the leaders, although not the best one, irrespective of the size of the data chunk.