Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000: Terabyte Storage arrives on the Desktop
by Gary Key on March 19, 2007 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Actual Application Performance
Our application benchmarks are designed to show application performance results with times being reported in minutes / seconds or seconds only, with lower scores being better. Our graph engine does not allow for a time format such a 1:05 (one minute, five seconds) so this time value will be represented as 1.05. While these tests will show some differences between the drives it is important to understand we are no longer measuring the pure performance of the hard drive but how well our platform performs with each individual drive. The performance of a hard drive is an integral part of the computer platform but other factors such as memory, CPU, core logic, and even driver choice can play a major role in determining how well the hard drive performs in any given task. Also worth noting is that new features of Windows Vista - specifically SuperFetch - can further reduce the measured performance differences between hard drives.
Game Load Test
Our Sims 2 - Open for Business test measures the time it takes to load the initial portion of the game. Our application timer starts when the game icon is initiated until the neighborhood menu appears.
The results are basically the same as our IPEAK results as the WD Raptor series continues to lead all drives although the performance differences are not as drastic once we take into account the entire platform. We notice the Hitachi drive scoring better than the other 7200rpm drives and the drive seemed just as fast as the Raptors over the course of game play, something we generally did not find with our other top performing 7200rpm drives.
Game Level Load
This test centers on the actual loading of a playable level within our game selections. We run Battlefield 2 and measure the time it takes to load the Daqing Oilfields level. Our application timer begins when the start single player icon is initiated and ends when the join game icon is visible.
The WD1500ADFD Raptor continues its pattern of being the best available drive for the gaming enthusiast and our subjective opinion also matches the test scores although we are openly debating this statement now. Of course it is easy to debate our continued love affair with the Raptor as the difference in load times between the WD1500 and the 7K1000 drive was only one second so it appears we are getting close to finally having a Raptor killer in the large capacity 7200rpm drives. We firmly believe the areal density and 32 MB cache advantages of the Hitachi 7K1000 make up for the rotational and random access advantages of the Raptor in our gaming tests.
AnyDVD 5.9.6
Our next test has us utilizing the "ripping" function of AnyDVD to copy the Office Space DVD file from our source drive to our test drive. Our DVD features 29 files totaling 7.55GB of data and is an excellent test for determining the write speed of a drive.
Our Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB drive scores extremely well in this test due to exceptional read times with large data blocks in sequential order, something its larger sibling does not handle well. This is one of the few tests where our 7K1000 does not finish ahead of the other 7200rpm drives but it does improve upon its performance when compared to the IPEAK results. The 7K1000 still manages a top five finish while finishing 15 seconds ahead of the Seagate 750GB drive.
Nero Audio Encode
Our last test has us utilizing the audio encoding functions of Nero to convert our INXS Greatest Hits audio files in MP4 format to a high quality variable rate MP3 file for our portable player. Our test features 16 files totaling 137MB of data and is an excellent test for determining the read and write speed of a drive.
The test results show once again the amount of time a fast hard drive like the WD Raptor can save over the course of audio or video file manipulation session. In this case, the WD1500ADFD finishes just ahead of the 7K1000 where it handles small block sizes in sequential order slightly better due to is rotational speed advantage.
Our application benchmarks are designed to show application performance results with times being reported in minutes / seconds or seconds only, with lower scores being better. Our graph engine does not allow for a time format such a 1:05 (one minute, five seconds) so this time value will be represented as 1.05. While these tests will show some differences between the drives it is important to understand we are no longer measuring the pure performance of the hard drive but how well our platform performs with each individual drive. The performance of a hard drive is an integral part of the computer platform but other factors such as memory, CPU, core logic, and even driver choice can play a major role in determining how well the hard drive performs in any given task. Also worth noting is that new features of Windows Vista - specifically SuperFetch - can further reduce the measured performance differences between hard drives.
Game Load Test
Our Sims 2 - Open for Business test measures the time it takes to load the initial portion of the game. Our application timer starts when the game icon is initiated until the neighborhood menu appears.
The results are basically the same as our IPEAK results as the WD Raptor series continues to lead all drives although the performance differences are not as drastic once we take into account the entire platform. We notice the Hitachi drive scoring better than the other 7200rpm drives and the drive seemed just as fast as the Raptors over the course of game play, something we generally did not find with our other top performing 7200rpm drives.
Game Level Load
This test centers on the actual loading of a playable level within our game selections. We run Battlefield 2 and measure the time it takes to load the Daqing Oilfields level. Our application timer begins when the start single player icon is initiated and ends when the join game icon is visible.
The WD1500ADFD Raptor continues its pattern of being the best available drive for the gaming enthusiast and our subjective opinion also matches the test scores although we are openly debating this statement now. Of course it is easy to debate our continued love affair with the Raptor as the difference in load times between the WD1500 and the 7K1000 drive was only one second so it appears we are getting close to finally having a Raptor killer in the large capacity 7200rpm drives. We firmly believe the areal density and 32 MB cache advantages of the Hitachi 7K1000 make up for the rotational and random access advantages of the Raptor in our gaming tests.
AnyDVD 5.9.6
Our next test has us utilizing the "ripping" function of AnyDVD to copy the Office Space DVD file from our source drive to our test drive. Our DVD features 29 files totaling 7.55GB of data and is an excellent test for determining the write speed of a drive.
Our Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB drive scores extremely well in this test due to exceptional read times with large data blocks in sequential order, something its larger sibling does not handle well. This is one of the few tests where our 7K1000 does not finish ahead of the other 7200rpm drives but it does improve upon its performance when compared to the IPEAK results. The 7K1000 still manages a top five finish while finishing 15 seconds ahead of the Seagate 750GB drive.
Nero Audio Encode
Our last test has us utilizing the audio encoding functions of Nero to convert our INXS Greatest Hits audio files in MP4 format to a high quality variable rate MP3 file for our portable player. Our test features 16 files totaling 137MB of data and is an excellent test for determining the read and write speed of a drive.
The test results show once again the amount of time a fast hard drive like the WD Raptor can save over the course of audio or video file manipulation session. In this case, the WD1500ADFD finishes just ahead of the 7K1000 where it handles small block sizes in sequential order slightly better due to is rotational speed advantage.
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yacoub - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
I've been curious how much help drives would get from a larger cache. What if smaller drives came with, say, 64MB of cache?JarredWalton - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
Looking at the 750GB Seagate with its 16MB cache, there are definitely areas where the 32MB cache helps. Basically, with the larger capacities you need more cache to effectively handle all the data. Realistically, I'd say there's about 0% chance we'll see 64MB cache on smaller drives. When we're running 2TB drives, however....atomicacid55 - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
I wish that the T7K500 could be reviewed in this. After all, that's the current challenger to the 7200.10, and if you read STR, the consensus is that it's an overall faster drive than the 7200.10. Every drive manufacturer tends to set its own trends in performance, and I personally believe it's more useful to have a comparison of the 7K1000 with its sibling rather than only against other brands.Gary Key - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
Hitachi is finally sending us a T7K500. We will have a 500GB roundup with the latest drives from WD, Seagate, Samsung, and Hitachi in April.dm0r - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
Never thought a 7200 RPM drive could be very competitive to a 10000 one...Thanks to its 32 Mb Cache.Loved the acoustics test, it shows a very quiet drive.With this new drives coming to the market, Western Digital will have to think about its raptors Overpriced drives and low its prices.Very good review.A question: How many Hitachi drives will be lauched with Perpendicular recording like this and what capacities?
Justin Case - Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - link
Higher areal density means more data can be read per rotation, so it could even be faster in terms of STR. But 7200 RPM drives will still have higher latency than 10k models, of course. The only way to overcome that would be to add more heads (ex., 2 per platter).bkiserx7 - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
...wonder what a perpindicular raptor will do one day?crimson117 - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
Attack prey from right angles?cruzer - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
On page 10, "As stated in the article, we believe leaving AAM and NCQ turned provides the best experience with this drive."Do you mean turned on or off?
tuteja1986 - Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - link
I really want 3 of them for raid 5 setup :)