Western Digital and Seagate: 320GB Grudge Match
by Gary Key on July 27, 2006 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
IPEAK Game Installation Tests
Our IPEAK based Game Installation benchmarks simply show the ability of the hard drive to write data as quickly as possible to the disc based upon the installation software instructions. As detailed in our IPEAK setup description we installed the games from our source drive in order to eliminate the optical drive bottleneck. In separate application timing we witnessed basically the same percentage spread when installing the games via our DVD drive so these results are representative of actual installation performance.
The Seagate 7200.10 320GB drive simply dominates the WD3200KS in these tests with performance differences up to 45%. While this is impressive, we need to remember these tests reflect pure hard drive performance and will be mitigated by the overall system platform as we will see in our application tests. These tests are basically designed around continual requests, something the Seagate 7200.10 drives excel at. Any defragmentation program will be Seagate's best friend based upon our results.
IPEAK Game Play Tests
The IPEAK based Game Play tests are centered on the benefits of having a hard disk that can load non-linear or sequential data files quickly without interrupting the flow of the game.
Sounding like a broken record, the WD Raptor places first as its 10k rpm spindle speed and optimized cache play an important role in its ability to sustain high transfer rates. However, the WD3200KS comes back and posts a knockout against the 320GB Seagate with up to a 28% performance lead. While these differences sound large, in actual desktop usage most users will not be able to tell the difference except when utilizing the Raptor in certain situations. These tests certainly reflect what you would see during game play and the non-sequential nature of the requests favor the Western Digital drives.
Our IPEAK based Game Installation benchmarks simply show the ability of the hard drive to write data as quickly as possible to the disc based upon the installation software instructions. As detailed in our IPEAK setup description we installed the games from our source drive in order to eliminate the optical drive bottleneck. In separate application timing we witnessed basically the same percentage spread when installing the games via our DVD drive so these results are representative of actual installation performance.
The Seagate 7200.10 320GB drive simply dominates the WD3200KS in these tests with performance differences up to 45%. While this is impressive, we need to remember these tests reflect pure hard drive performance and will be mitigated by the overall system platform as we will see in our application tests. These tests are basically designed around continual requests, something the Seagate 7200.10 drives excel at. Any defragmentation program will be Seagate's best friend based upon our results.
IPEAK Game Play Tests
The IPEAK based Game Play tests are centered on the benefits of having a hard disk that can load non-linear or sequential data files quickly without interrupting the flow of the game.
Sounding like a broken record, the WD Raptor places first as its 10k rpm spindle speed and optimized cache play an important role in its ability to sustain high transfer rates. However, the WD3200KS comes back and posts a knockout against the 320GB Seagate with up to a 28% performance lead. While these differences sound large, in actual desktop usage most users will not be able to tell the difference except when utilizing the Raptor in certain situations. These tests certainly reflect what you would see during game play and the non-sequential nature of the requests favor the Western Digital drives.
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Wesley Fink - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
Actually, as strange as it sounds, Gary is correct on the WD warranty. You can check it out for yourself at http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp">http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp. OEM (bulk) drives carry a 3-year warranty and retail drives carry one year with an option to add 2 more years (to 3 total) for $14.95. Enterprise drives like Raptor carry a 5-year warranty.Wesley Fink - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
Corrected.archcommus - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
I'm guessing it should be "...where heavy read requests were prevalent." Just a heads up.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
Typo fixed.Zaitsev - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
Nice article, Gary. I enjoyed the background info on the two companies.A quick question: Is it possible the str of the Seagate is higher because of a higher areal density due to having only two platters vs. the WD's three? Or have I overlooked something and need to go to sleep :)
AkumaX - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
Nice article. We win either way!!! I'd rather go with Seagate though because I've had to RMA too many WD's in the past few years.Does anyone know of an app that measures HDD throughput (as in MB/s, read/write or both) in realtime?
Calin - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
I found strange how big a difference is in some bencmarks between one drive and the other (losing or winning). Anyway, each drive looks good value for moneyGooger - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
HDTACHPerformanceTest 6.0 (PassMark Software)
PC Pitstop @ PC Pitstop.com (requires internet explorer)
Googer - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?req...">http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?req...AkumaX - Saturday, July 29, 2006 - link
Sorry, HDTach is a benchmark. I'm looking for something that actually tells me how my hard drive is doing at the moment