No Performance gain on upgrading HD? Xbench Inside

[sukanas]

so i did a test w/ both HD's and the results didnt yield much of a difference
the left is a 5400 and the right is a 7200
can anyone explain?

thanks

 

[dr. shdw]

don't look at the composite score?

 

[bcaslis]

Which drives? Speed alone isn't the only factor. The Hitachi 320GB 5400rpm in a new 15" MBP gives almost identical xbench numbers to the Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm in the previous 17" MBP. But the Seagate 320GB 7200rpm in the new 15" is definitely faster.

Also, how much data do you have on the drives? All hard drives slow down as they start filling up. They are always fastest with the least amount of data on them. That's one advantage of a SSD. They are the same speed even as they fill up with data.

 

[sukanas]

the 250 is the stock drive
and the 320 is the hitachi

edit:
both have around 55gb of storage

 

[dukebound85]

did you look at the sub scores? the 7200 outperfromed the 5400 in about all categories (six of eight)

i dont put much faith in xbench. heck look at the scores that arent hd tests. why would they be different between the two runs?

 

[bcaslis]

Hmm, well it's the uncached random write that is dragging the score down. Other than that it's definitely faster than the stock. It definitely benchmarks slower than the Seagate drive, but I haven't found xbench to be the most reliable either.

 

[sukanas]

Hmm, well it's the uncached random write that is dragging the score down. Other than that it's definitely faster than the stock. It definitely benchmarks slower than the Seagate drive, but I haven't found xbench to be the most reliable either.

is the marginal improvement big enough though?
i guess id expect the 7200 to be wayy faster
or could i be wrong?

 

[bcaslis]

is the marginal improvement big enough though?
i guess id expect the 7200 to be wayy faster
or could i be wrong?

Whether it's big enough is for you to judge. But other than the uncached random write the numbers seem about what I would expect.

 

[barefeats]

Xbench is a very limited hard drive tester.

A better benchmarking app for random small random files from 4K to 1024K is QuickBench (SpeedTools.com). We use it in our lab for testing drives.

It will also test large sustained transfers. Another to try is Kona System Test which you can download for free from the AJA site.