Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB: Size Does Matter
by Gary Key on May 18, 2006 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Test Setup - Hardware
We have changed our test beds to reflect changes in the current marketplace. While we wanted to change to the AMD AM2 platform, the continual product delays forced us into staying with a socket 939 based system. Based upon the continuing proliferation of dual core processors along with future roadmaps from AMD and Intel signifying the end of the single core processor on the desktop in the near future, we have upgraded from our AMD Athlon64 3500+ to an AMD Opteron 170. This change will also allow us to expand our real world multitasking benchmarks in the near future. We will review our test bed requirements once we have an opportunity to thoroughly test the AM2 and Intel Core 2 Duo platforms.We debated on the memory size for our IPEAK trace file creations and decided to move to 2GB of system memory. A system with a 1GB memory configuration is the predominant standard at this time in the enthusiast community, but 2GB memory setups are fast becoming the future standard. Although a 1GB memory installation allows us to capture and report a higher amount of disk activity in certain applications; we decided to make the switch at this time as the performance difference is minimal when compared to the 1GB trace files.
| Standard Test Bed Playback of iPEAK Trace Files and Test Application Results |
|
| Processor: | AMD Opteron 170 utilized for all tests. |
| RAM: | 2 x 1GB Corsair 3500LL PRO Settings: DDR400 at (2.5-3-3-7*c* 1T) |
| OS Hard Drive: | 1 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA (16MB Buffer) |
| System Platform Drivers: | NVIDIA Platform Driver - 6.85 |
| Video Card: | 1 x Asus 7600GS (PCI Express) for all tests. |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 84.21 WHQL |
| Optical Drive: | BenQ DW1640 |
| Cooling: | Zalman CNPS9500 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ GamexStream 700W |
| Case: | Gigabyte 3D Aurora |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| Motherboards: | MSI K8N Diamond Plus |
| Standard Test Bed Creation of iPEAK Trace Files |
|
| Processor: | AMD Opteron 170 utilized for all tests. |
| RAM: | 2 x 1GB Corsair 3500LL PRO Settings: DDR400 at (2.5-3-3-7*c* 1T) |
| OS Hard Drive: | 1 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA (16MB Buffer) |
| System Platform Drivers: | ATI Platform Driver - 1.1.0.0 |
| Video Card: | 1 x Asus 7600GS (PCI Express) for all tests. |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 84.21 WHQL |
| Optical Drive: | BenQ DW1640 |
| Cooling: | Zalman CNPS9500 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ GamexStream 700W |
| Case: | Gigabyte 3D Aurora |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| Motherboards: | ECS KA1 MVP Extreme |
We chose the ECS KA1-MVP as the platform for creating our IPEAK trace files. This affords us an updated system with the capability of correctly creating and storing our trace files on a SATA based drive. It also allows us to utilize a modern video card for the game play trace results which are captured with the graphic settings at a typical 1280x1024 resolution.
You may have noticed we did not use the MSI K8N Diamond Plus for both purposes, though the balance of the component choices are essentially the same. We experienced inconsistencies with our trace files on this platform, our ULi M1575 or M1697 boards, and those of any Intel based systems featuring the ICH6 or ICH7 chipsets. The ATI SB450 proved to be the only currently available chipset that produced repeatable results on all platforms when utilizing the IPEAK WinTrace32 program. Note that this is a common issue with IPEAK: once you create trace files that perform consistently, they will work fine on any platform, but creating the trace files requires the use of specific platforms/drives with prior trace files being developed on an Intel board with the ICH5 Southbridge.
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Gary Key - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - link
The charts have been changed. :)
VooDooAddict - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - link
I like the "db(A)@5mm" sugestion.FallenDeathAngel - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - link
The RaptorWD1500ADFD Western Digital
Raptor
WD5000YS
Yes....
SpaceRanger - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - link
That the only drive you tested in RAID-0, was the new Seagate drive. The performace charts are kinda useless when the RAID-0 scores are included, cause it misleadingly shows the Seagate drive on top of a good portion of them. Without examples of RAID-0 performance from the WD1500 Raptor, or the WD5000YS, you are giving the impression of favoritism towards the Seagate drive.Gary Key - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - link
Good Day....from page 5-
We are providing RAID 0 results for the Seagate 7200.10 for comparative results to the single drive. Seagate has recently released updated firmware for the 500GB 7200.9 that improves RAID performance; unfortunately we were unable to complete our testing with the new firmware before publication. Our RAID results for the WD1500 series will be published in our next storage article.
We will have RAID O results for both of these drives in the 500GB roundup. We are not tyring to show favoritism towards the Seagate drive. Our comments are quite clear about the effects of RAID 0 in the I/O operations that while interesting, they do not always translate to actual 1:1 improvements in application usage. Our application timing tests bear this out to some degree.
We debated on showing the Seagate RAID 0 results as it is a no win situation. I am sure based upon the comments from our last couple of reviews that about as many people would be asking why we did not provide RAID 0 results. We are currently completing the RAID 0 results with the WD1500 drives, we ran into a couple of issues that required technical conversations with WD. Also, the sheer scope of testing every drive in RAID configurations is extremely time consuming with results that are basically the same when compared to the single drive scores.
My personal opinion is that RAID 0 is only effective in such a limited scope of applications that we should not report it at all. However, this feature has been pushed by the core logic chipset suppliers, marketed by the motherboard suppliers, and eventually becomes a test request by the user community. I would much rather show the benefits of RAID 5, 0+1, 10 in a separate article, which we will in the future. It is difficult at times to procure three samples of each drive. ;-)
I appreciate your comments, they will probably not be the last on this subject.
srk052004 - Thursday, May 25, 2006 - link
Hi Gary (and all). I have been told that for my purposes (manipulating 40gb SAS or SPSS data sets), RAID 0 really would be appropriate. Do you agree? Or, would you say that RAID 10 would still be preferable?I, too, would LOVE to see results comparing different capacities of 7200.10.
BTW, this was an interesting review.
SpaceRanger - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - link
Thank you for the quick response :)If you wants to show the comparision between RAID-0 and the Single drive, then have seperate charts showing just those 2. It makes the analysis of the performance much easier.
Now THAT'S an article I'd love to read as well!
Zoomer - Friday, May 26, 2006 - link
Ditto. It would be a nice way to split up articles into _more_ managable chunks of work!Thanks for the review! Will be looking forward to the ibm (hitachi), seagate and WD shootout.
Gary Key - Saturday, June 24, 2006 - link
We will change our format in July with the 500GB and 250~320GB roundups. I too would like to manage the chunks of work in different fashion.Questar - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - link
Then what was different than what Seagate claimed?