Western Digital WD1500ADFD: King Raptor
by Gary Key on February 8, 2006 1:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Hard Disk Performance: Multi-Tasking & Game Tests
Multitasking Test Procedure
To provide a real world example of multitasking, we run Outlook and import 450MB of email messages into an account while running our benchmarking utility to zip a single 300MB file. To compare our results, we calculate the difference between the multitasked process and the single task file zip process.
Game Test Procedures
Our Game Level Loading Time tests include two of the most popular games: Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. Because of their high resolution textures and the large levels, the loading time for the levels of each game are long enough to show a difference between each drive.
We have also included an older strategy game, Command & Conquer: Generals, because of its longer level load times as well. Though the game is a couple of years old, it still proves to be a good measure of data loading performance.
We will be updating our benchmark suite in the near future.
Multitasking Test Procedure
To provide a real world example of multitasking, we run Outlook and import 450MB of email messages into an account while running our benchmarking utility to zip a single 300MB file. To compare our results, we calculate the difference between the multitasked process and the single task file zip process.
Game Test Procedures
Our Game Level Loading Time tests include two of the most popular games: Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. Because of their high resolution textures and the large levels, the loading time for the levels of each game are long enough to show a difference between each drive.
We have also included an older strategy game, Command & Conquer: Generals, because of its longer level load times as well. Though the game is a couple of years old, it still proves to be a good measure of data loading performance.
We will be updating our benchmark suite in the near future.
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Gary Key - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Maybe we should do a RAID 5 test only.....the RAID 0 results are what you expect them to be at this time, very good in two system benchmarks but slower in a couple of games..... ;->
mlittl3 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Here you go.http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=rap...">http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=rap...
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/06/wd1500ad_ra...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/06/wd1500ad_ra...
Two articles with raid numbers.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
The THG review only compares a single 150 Raptor to a RAID 0 with slower drives, but it does use a few real-world benchmarks. The other review tests RAID 0 with these Raptors but only uses synthetic benchmarks. Synthetic benchmarks are useful, but they are only part of the performance picture. Results with real-world benchmarks - particularly in RAID 0 - are very different.Live - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
The tests linked are not very good. GamePC uses synthetic benchmarks which are not indicative of real world desktop performance. The Iometer in particular is not useful for single user scenarios and never was. Basically Gamepc doesn’t know what they are doing (or since they sell the stuff maybe that’s just what they do...)We all RAID-O improves performance a lot in Synthetic benchmarks. It does however not do the same for real world tests and certainly not in a cost effective way. I highly doubt SATA or this new raptor changes that. But would be interesting nonetheless to see some tests on the matter.
rjm55 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
This is the best hard drive review I've seen on AT in a very long time. Great job, guys. The history of Raptors at the start was a nice touch to help me better understand what WD is doing. I also think this is the first drive review I have seen by Gary Key. Bring us some more like this one.Live - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
I have to agree this was really a step up as far as hardrive reviews go. Nice to see you are improving your thermal and acoustics testing. Keep up the good work!!!Rolphus - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Agreed - great review, and it was really interesting and useful to get an understanding of the evolution of the product.My only question is, why wasn't Raptor+NCQ added as part of the multi-tasking tested? I can see that being a useful indicator of desktop performance, especially as dual-core CPUs become more prevalent.
Rolphus - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
That would be multi-tasking tests. Only had one coffee so far.Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
We will be investigating the effects of NCQ in more detail in the near future. We are working on a revised benchmark suite that consists of more real world applications and varying multi-task scenarios.ohnnyj - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
In some of the graphs there are two 74GB Raptors, are these two different revisions?John