Sequential Performance – HDTune, File Copy, YAPT (sequential)

We have shifted over to combining our results into two groupings for consumer reviews. First up is sequential performance:

HDTune:

HDTune tests a similar level of features as compared with HDTach, but with a different access pattern. Thus provides us with an additional set of benchmark numbers to compare between storage configurations. CPU utilization has proven negligible with modern processing horsepower, and is no longer included. Additionally, we do not include write performance due to HDTune's write access pattern not playing nicely with most SSDs we have tested it on.

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Since Western Digital chose to go big on their NAS drives first, the highest capacity consumer (Black) drive to compare to is only a 6TB capacity. I will include the 8TB Red for more data points, but realize that is a slower spinning 5400-RPM unit.

Higher platter densities necessary to achieve 10TB lead to higher sequentials, and that's certainly the case here, with the BarraCuda Pro 10TB turning in the fastest sequentials we've seen from a consumer part.

PCPer File Copy Test

Our custom PCPer-FC test does some fairly simple file creation and copy routines in order to test the storage system for speed.  The script creates a set of files of varying sizes, times the creation process, then copies the same files to another partition on the same hard drive and times the copy process.  There are four file sizes that we used to try and find any strong or weak points in the hardware: 10 files @ 1000 MB each, 100 files @ 100 MB each, 500 files @ 10 MB each and 1000 files at 1 MB each.

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Creations looked good, but the BarraCuda Pro had a harder time with smaller file sizes, likely due to its different caching method and slower seek times.

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File copy speeds were decent and competitive with the faster drives in the pack.

YAPT:

YAPT (yet another performance test) is a benchmark recommended by a pair of drive manufacturers and was incredibly difficult to locate as it hasn't been updated or used in quite some time.  That doesn't make it irrelevant by any means though, as the benchmark is quite useful.  It creates a test file of about 100 MB in size and runs both random and sequential read and write tests with it while changing the data I/O size in the process.  The misaligned nature of this test exposes the read-modify-write performance of SSDs and Advanced Format HDDs.

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The Seagate unit sat at the top of sequential read results here, and high in the results for sequential writes as well.

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