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Xbench disk test: 40, time for new hdd?

johannnn

johannnn

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Nov 20, 2009
2,404
2,890
Sweden
Hi everyone!

I just got hold of a iMac G4, 1.25 GHz 768mb ram. It has Leopard installed.
I bought an 1GB SO-DIMM ram and bumbed the total ram to 1.25GB, feels nice.
I ran the Disk Test of Xbench 1.3 to see how well the drive is doing after all these years (System Profiler says it's a Seagate Barrecuda 7200rpm), and I'm getting a total of 40 (reproducible).

Here's the stats of one run:

Code: 
	Disk Test	40.48	
		Sequential	73.32	
			Uncached Write	69.84	42.88 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	77.53	43.86 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	58.17	17.02 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	98.52	49.52 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	27.96	
			Uncached Write	9.46	1.00 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	63.75	20.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	79.05	0.56 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	110.46	20.50 MB/sec [256K blocks]

This is the first time I run Xbench, but 9 in random uncached write doesn't seem too high. However, the Xbench database has been down now for 2 days since I ran the test so I can't really compare my scores.

Can anyone say anything about this score? My wallet is thin but if the drive is a big bottleneck I'm very tempted to get a new IDE-drive, as I've planned to use this computer as my main machine at work for 1-2 years. A 2.5" drive is also tempting to reduce fan noice, but I think it's too complicated for me with adapters and stuff (I'm scared just to replacing the drive).

Thanks!
 
Hellhammer said:
What is the capacity? That looks normal for an old low-capacity HD.
Click to expand...
80GB (http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=66cc26a2c88ef010VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&locale=en-US&reqPage=Legacy).

Do you have any idea of what a new HD gets? I've been looking at 80GB & 160GB IDE drives that a few stores sells.

mulo said:
your drive is fine, IDE doesn't get much faster then that
Click to expand...
Ok thanks for information. Although I hoped I could easily bring some more juice to this machine :(
 
Those are just not the greatest drives. They're pretty old technology, so you definitely can get much better results with a newer HDD in there. I ran Xbench on my 1GHz 17' iMac which has the original 80 Seagate Barracuda just like yours, and also on my G4 Cube which has a new Western Digital Caviar 160GB drive in it. Both are 7200rpm. First the iMac:


Disk Test 33.27
Sequential 64.34
Uncached Write 53.39 32.78 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 64.76 36.64 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 67.71 19.81 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 75.57 37.98 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 22.44
Uncached Write 7.14 0.76 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 58.63 18.77 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 87.29 0.62 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 102.83 19.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]

And now the Cube:


Disk Test 50.44
Sequential 57.76
Uncached Write 49.64 30.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 82.16 46.48 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 43.01 12.59 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 73.08 36.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 44.77
Uncached Write 16.73 1.77 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 102.24 32.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 87.53 0.62 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 119.59 22.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]

As you can see, the Cube score is much better even though its an older computer with a slower ATA bus.
 
Hrududu said:
As you can see, the Cube score is much better even though its an older computer with a slower ATA bus.
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting your scores! Unfortunately 40 -> 50 says nothing to me, is it a big jump? Or hardly noticeably?
 
poobear said:
Thanks for posting your scores! Unfortunately 40 -> 50 says nothing to me, is it a big jump? Or hardly noticeably?
Click to expand...
The problem is the Cube is just a much slower computer all around than the iMac. Applications start up fast and boot time is good. If you get a new drive in your iMac, you'll see improvement for sure.
 
I found a Samsung 400GB drive (HD400LD) in my old room at parents house, didn't know I had one. Once I get a hold of some thermal paste I'll report how it performs!
 
zen.state said:
AJA System Test
Click to expand...

It's not a very deep test, it seems to only test sequential transfers, and doesn't even show if it is 256k or 4k. To be honest, I really don't see much difference on sequential transfers (since it's already high enough and I don't really perform large files transfers regularly), I'm more concerned on random read/writes (especially small files -> 4k) since that function is more useful for regularly daily tasks I perform (opening programs, saving/opening small files, web surfing, etc.).

Is there any way to see that on the AJA System Test? Or any other test that does it better than XBench? I know is old, but still shows more info and is free; anyway it will be nice to use an up to date program instead.
 
castillo4141 said:
It's not a very deep test, it seems to only test sequential transfers, and doesn't even show if it is 256k or 4k. To be honest, I really don't see much difference on sequential transfers (since it's already high enough and I don't really perform large files transfers regularly), I'm more concerned on random read/writes (especially small files -> 4k) since that function is more useful for regularly daily tasks I perform (opening programs, saving/opening small files, web surfing, etc.).

Is there any way to see that on the AJA System Test? Or any other test that does it better than XBench? I know is old, but still shows more info and is free; anyway it will be nice to use an up to date program instead.
Click to expand...

The point of it is it's very consistent. Xbench is far from consistent.

A better and far more though HD test is QuickBench included in the SpeedTools software package. This is about $20 last time I looked. It also tends to come free with a lot of OWC storage products which is how I got it. AJA is simple but consistent and free so thats why I gave that link. Xbench can read one speed then 2 min later without doing any other task on the system the same test will be 10-20% up or down. You simply can't trust results like that.
 
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