Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001 4TB Review (Page 8 of 10)

Page 8 - Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0

About PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0

This Advanced Disk Test, which is part of PerformanceTest, measures the data transfer speed when reading or writing data to one or more disks. The speed that data can be transferred between memory and a hard disk drive is one of a system's most important performance aspects. There are quite a few factors which have a bearing on this speed and the Advanced Disk Drive Test allows the user to vary most of these factors and compare the results.

The test supports any drive that can be mounted under Windows. Including IDE drives, SCSI, RAID, USB key drives, SATA, networked shared drives and external drives.

Users have the ability to test multiple drives at the same time using multiple threads, and specify:

- The size of the test file used. Larger files mean that the system cache has less of an effect on the test types, which use caching (see below).
- The size of the data block used for each read or write request. Larger blocks mean less requests and can lead to an improvement in performance.
- The choice of four access methods - C/C++ API, Win32 API cached / uncached and raw disk access.
- Sequential or random access (seeking plus reading and writing)
- Synchronous and Asynchronous access
- The split between reading and writing

The results of all completed tests may be graphed using our custom graphing components.

From: Developer's Page




PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0's Advanced Disk Test, unlike HD Tune Pro 4.60, generates some awesome graphs right out of the box. It also provides valuable insight in simulating real world performance applications. To make things clear to you, the first graph simulates a database server, followed by a file server, web server, and workstation. Drives with high sequential read and write performance will do well in PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0. However, it also requires high IOPS capabilities for the best score, and as such, results for hard disk drives will prove to be very relevant.

Overall, the Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001 4TB's performance was pretty good compared against other hard drives. Again, this is an uncached test; running it multiple iterations had no impact on the score. With results of 0.98MB/s, 7.28MB/s, 6.29MB/s, 3.10MB/s, it was consistently better than the Seagate Laptop SSHD ST500LM000 500GB. The 5,400RPM WD Red WD40EFRX had a score of 0.80MB/s, 5.78MB/s, 7.47MB/s and 2.61MB/s, respectively, while the 5,900RPM Seagate NAS HDD had a score of 0.39MB/s, 3.95MB/s, 4.39MB/s, and 2.65MB/s, respectively. This meant the Desktop SSHD scored significantly better than the NAS HDD. Obviously, it was no match for the Crucial MX200 500GB at 57.81MB/s, 334.64MB/s, 421.68MB/s, 86.60MB/s, in that order, but hey -- the Seagate Desktop SSHD comes with a whopping eight times the capacity of the Crucial MX200 for only $160 at press time.


Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 3.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 4.60
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0
9. Benchmark: PCMark 7
10. Conclusion