How do I improve my drive performance?

Qacer

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2001
2,721
1
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I recently bought a Seagate 500GB (ST3500320AS) SATA drive. I was reading its specs from Seagate's website and they had the following:

Interface - SATA NCQ
Cache - 32 MBytes
Capacity - 500 GB
Guaranteed Sectors - 976,773,168

PERFORMANCE
Spindle Speed - 7,200 rpm
Average latency - 4.16 msec
Random read seek time - <8.5 msec
Random write seek time - <9.5 msec

I was doing some benchmarking with the latest freeware versio of SiSoft Sandra and these are my results:

Benchmark Results

Drive Index : 78.21MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Random Access Time : 12ms
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.

Performance Test Status
Run ID : ST3500320AS 500GB (SATA150, NCQ)
Platform Compliance : x86
System Timer : 3.00GHz
Use Overlapped I/O : Yes
I/O Queue Depth : 4 request(s)
Block Size : 1MB

Volume Information
Capacity : 465.76GB

Detailed Benchmark Results
Speed at position 0% : 83.56MB/s (80%)
Speed at position 3% : 95.60MB/s (92%)
Speed at position 7% : 98.94MB/s (95%)
Speed at position 10% : 103.99MB/s (100%)
Speed at position 13% : 92.18MB/s (89%)
Speed at position 17% : 95.39MB/s (92%)
Speed at position 20% : 92.15MB/s (89%)
Speed at position 23% : 92.54MB/s (89%)
Speed at position 27% : 93.36MB/s (90%)
Speed at position 30% : 94.77MB/s (91%)
Speed at position 33% : 90.04MB/s (87%)
Speed at position 37% : 90.26MB/s (87%)
Speed at position 40% : 91.75MB/s (88%)
Speed at position 43% : 84.03MB/s (81%)
Speed at position 47% : 79.02MB/s (76%)
Speed at position 50% : 80.07MB/s (77%)
Speed at position 53% : 80.11MB/s (77%)
Speed at position 57% : 78.85MB/s (76%)
Speed at position 60% : 75.10MB/s (72%)
Speed at position 63% : 72.51MB/s (70%)
Speed at position 67% : 72.98MB/s (70%)
Speed at position 70% : 68.37MB/s (66%)
Speed at position 73% : 63.78MB/s (61%)
Speed at position 77% : 67.95MB/s (65%)
Speed at position 80% : 64.99MB/s (62%)
Speed at position 83% : 58.29MB/s (56%)
Speed at position 87% : 59.17MB/s (57%)
Speed at position 90% : 53.79MB/s (52%)
Speed at position 93% : 53.84MB/s (52%)
Speed at position 97% : 50.52MB/s (49%)
Speed at position 100% : 46.74MB/s (45%)
Random Access Time : 12ms
Full Stroke Access Time : 9ms

Physical Disk
Model : ST3500320AS
Version : SD15
Interface : SATA
Removable Drive : No
Queueing On : Yes


I'm comparing the Random Access Time number with the specs on the website. It's off by a couple milliseconds. Is there any way I can improve on this?

My 500GB drive is connected to its own SATA port on the motherboard, and it's solely use for storage purposes. No applications or programs reside in it.

Thanks!
 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
81
Not sure how Seagate gets their random seek times, but i'll tell you that you don't see those sorta times unless you have a Raptor.

IOW, either they cheat, lie, or perhaps just measure them differently than most benchmarking suites. ;)

Check out our HDD benchmarks thread here: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2168918&enterthread=y

Run HD Tune & see how your HDD stacks up & add your results to the thread. :)
 

Qacer

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2001
2,721
1
91
Sweet deal! Thanks!

Do you have any idea why SiSoft is showing my hard drive as SATA150? The place that I bought it and other places that I've seen online have it listed as SATA300.

 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
81
It won't really affect speed in reality anyway...

But perhaps your mobo only does SATA 150?
Jumper on the HDD might cap it at 150 also IIRC.

 

Qacer

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2001
2,721
1
91
I have another drive attached the motherboard and it shows as SATA300 on SiSoft.

 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
81
Originally posted by: n7
Jumper on the HDD might cap it at 150 also IIRC.

Look into that; pretty sure all my newer Seagates all have jumpers for capping @ 150.

And depending on the mobo & which SATA controller you're using, you can have 300 &/or 150 on the same mobo.
 

taltamir

Lifer
Mar 21, 2004
13,576
6
76
Overclock it! just kidding, but people DO overclock hard drives, both mechanical and SSD... ofcourse the very notion is pure insanity, but that just might be your thing...
 

Qacer

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2001
2,721
1
91
Very nice. I was finally able to get the jumper out, and now the drive is being shown as SATA300. Thank you!

 

EarthwormJim

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 2003
3,239
0
76
Originally posted by: Qacer
Sweet deal! Thanks!

Do you have any idea why SiSoft is showing my hard drive as SATA150? The place that I bought it and other places that I've seen online have it listed as SATA300.

Maybe your SATA controller is set for native IDE? Pretty sure that limits transfer rates to 1500mbit/s

*edit*

NVM just saw you had a jumper on the drive wrong :)