Hitachi vs. Western Digital vs. Seagate: A Battle of the Mammoths
by Purav Sanghani on December 2, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Final Words
What we've learned is that even though two of the three drives that we reviewed today have 3.0 Gb/sec SATA interfaces, the 1.5Gb/sec drive topped both of them in most of the benchmarks. We had to run a few of our benchmarks multiple times just to prove to ourselves that the numbers were correct and nothing was interfering with the accuracy of our results.
Beginning with the IPEAK runs, the WD4000YR took the lead performing 769 IO operations per second under the Business Winstone 2004 test and 505 IO operations per second in the Content Creation Winstone 2004 part of the test. Seagate's 500GB 7200.9 came nowhere close to these numbers, but rather took a few steps back.
The WD4000YR also performed the best out of the three in the application load time tests with applications starting at around half a second faster consistently, which is a big deal. With this test, we were not only testing the specified application load times, but also general access times and service times.
All of the physical specifications of the WD4000YR tell us that it won't perform as well as the two 500GB models, but our benchmark results say otherwise. Those of us who are familiar with hard drive technology know that the higher transfer rates that the 3.0Gb/sec models have to offer can only be achieved when multiple disks are striped, but we never thought that a 1.5Gb/sec unit could out-do those with double the theoretical transfer rates.
Currently, the WD4000YR is going for as low as $213 at certain online retailers while the Seagate 500GB 7200.9 and Hitachi 7K500 are going for $350-$400. If you're not looking for a future-proof product and want quick performance for a low price, the WD4000YR is the way to go. The performance of the 7200.9 is just not up to par to recommend at the moment. It may quite possibly give much better performance in a RAID array, but that we'll leave for another day.
What we've learned is that even though two of the three drives that we reviewed today have 3.0 Gb/sec SATA interfaces, the 1.5Gb/sec drive topped both of them in most of the benchmarks. We had to run a few of our benchmarks multiple times just to prove to ourselves that the numbers were correct and nothing was interfering with the accuracy of our results.
Beginning with the IPEAK runs, the WD4000YR took the lead performing 769 IO operations per second under the Business Winstone 2004 test and 505 IO operations per second in the Content Creation Winstone 2004 part of the test. Seagate's 500GB 7200.9 came nowhere close to these numbers, but rather took a few steps back.
The WD4000YR also performed the best out of the three in the application load time tests with applications starting at around half a second faster consistently, which is a big deal. With this test, we were not only testing the specified application load times, but also general access times and service times.
All of the physical specifications of the WD4000YR tell us that it won't perform as well as the two 500GB models, but our benchmark results say otherwise. Those of us who are familiar with hard drive technology know that the higher transfer rates that the 3.0Gb/sec models have to offer can only be achieved when multiple disks are striped, but we never thought that a 1.5Gb/sec unit could out-do those with double the theoretical transfer rates.
Currently, the WD4000YR is going for as low as $213 at certain online retailers while the Seagate 500GB 7200.9 and Hitachi 7K500 are going for $350-$400. If you're not looking for a future-proof product and want quick performance for a low price, the WD4000YR is the way to go. The performance of the 7200.9 is just not up to par to recommend at the moment. It may quite possibly give much better performance in a RAID array, but that we'll leave for another day.
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bjacobson - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
Anandtech is such a great site. Seems like every other day theres a new benchmark or review of some sort. Far more stuff comes out from AT than many other tech sites. Thanks Anand.johnsonx - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
Anandtech does have more new articles per week than most sites, aside from THG. Unlike THG though, Anandtech's articles are quite well thought out, written, and supported. THG's flood of articles every week is more like a bad case of the $hits.Visual - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
AT, it might be good to include a link to your 7200.9 article ( The so-called mouth-watering failure, http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=25...">http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=25... ) and maybe if you've done separate reviews for the other drives link them too in the first page of this one.And this reminds me, we haven't yet seen a review of the highest-density 7200.9, the 160GB model. Nor the 133gb/platter 400gb drive :/
But yeah I know I shouldn't complain, I should just google for reviews by other sites.
PuravSanghani - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
We are currently working on getting our hands on a 160GB 7200.9 unit with the 160GB platters; hopefully within the next month or so.Regards,
Purav
Zar0n - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
Thanx 4 the review, but in the last benchmark, acoustics, u should remove the legend to the bottom so that the bars expanded, and it's easy to see the difference between all drives.Waiting for Maxtor DiamondMax 11 to chose the best drive :)
Slaimus - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
It is fairly uncommon for HD manufacturers to release updated firmware after the fact, but that might be what the other drives need.irev210 - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
firmware aint gunna help these drives.They are all very fast drives... just that the 400gb wd stands out because of its raptor heritage.
irev210 - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
From what I read at storage review, the 400gb western digital has the same chipset/technology as the 10k raptor, just with 100gb plattersx4. That is why you see such high I/O scores.I picked up two 400gb RE's (raid edition) to back up my data in a 400x2 raid 1. I couldnt be more pleased with the price/performance. The 400gb drives boast a 1.2 million hours MTBF, which seems pretty impressive for such an inexpensive drive. The motor looks rather large compared to other units, but i was too chicken to take apart my new drives to inspect.
What really bothers me is that anandtech rounded up the T7k250gb 160gb version which uses different platters than the T7k250 250gb. The 250gb uses 2x125gb platters which greatly improves performance over the 160gb.
For me, I use the T7k250 250gbx2 in a raid0 SATA 3.0gb/sec with the option of adding 2 more for much better performance and space in a raid0
for data, I use 400gbx2 raid 1
the best part is, I have lots of room to grow. I can grow to a 1tb main array and a 800gb data array.
I hope to see anandtech tackle some more hard drives! The 400gb western digital is an absolute STEAL at the price.
karioskasra - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
How would the WD perform in RAID1 when compared vs the other drives in RAID1? You hinted at it possibly being slower when striped, but how big is the difference? Does it maintain the lead over the other two when striped, or is it outperformed?Cygni - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
Makes me chuckle that a 1.5Gbps drive dominated the 3.0's. Not a surprise at all. ATA133 isnt even maxed out by these drives, let alone a SATA150 connection. Kinda reminds me of AGP... or PCI... or pretty much most of the standards these days getting replaced by "better faster must have!" standards that cost the end user money and offer no real improvement in performance.Hey, gotta keep selling boards, i guess.