Hiya I recently replaced an aging 80gb ATA100 drive in my workstation (Q9650 CPU, 4gb DDR2-1066, Nforce 7 Mobo) and I was having trouble with what to replace it with. I had a choice between using a spare 72GB 15k Cheetah U320 drive and a spare 32bit PCI Adaptec 29160 controller (limiting the drive to U160 operation and 160MB/s bandwidth) or forking out £45 for a Samsung spinpoint F3 500GB drive.
In the end I decided to buy the F3 and benchmark both drives then if the F3 lost I would add it to my mediasart server, heres my results:
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HD Tune (Spinpoint F3)
min MB/s: 76.2
Max MB/s: 144.2
Avg MB/s: 119.1
Access time: 13.3ms
Burst speed: 159.8MB/s
CPU usage: 4.5%
--------------------------
HD Tune (Cheetah)
min MB/s: 47.5
Max MB/s: 72.9
Avg MB/s: 63.3
Access time: 5.8ms
Burst speed: 73.3 MB/s
CPU usage: 1.9%
--------------------------
Crystal Diskmark (Spinpoint F3)
Seq Read: 151.1MB/s
Seq Write: 150.1MB/s
512K Read: 48.55MB/s
512K Write: 59.80MB/s
4K Read: 0.58MB/s
4K Write: 1.084MB/s
4K QD32 Read: 1.146MB/s
4K QD32 Write: 1.1MB/s
--------------------------
Crystal Diskmark (Cheetah)
Seq Read: 76.32MB/s
Seq Write: 67.33MB/s
512K Read: 51.71MB/s
512K Write: 42.59MB/s
4K Read: 1.271MB/s
4K Write: 2.389MB/s
4K QD32 Read: 3.344MB/s
4K QD32 Write: 2.687MB/s
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Well thats pretty conclusive, being limited to the 160MB/s bandwidth of the U160 controller didnt effect the Cheetah as a single drive wasnt enough to bottleneck the bus. The F3 is very impressive, it may have been battling an 8 year old opponant but the retail price gap makes up for that. for large sustained file transfers the F3 is the man however I am more interested in the access time and the ability to read a lot of small files very fast and in this area the Cheetah manages to stay ahead so It will be the drive I use and the F3 will find a new home im my Mediasmart server where its cpacity will actually be put ot use.
I hope my research is of use to anyone else who needs to make a similar decision (because old U320 drives on a U160 bus Vs SATA2 Juggernauts is a very common question ^^)
In the end I decided to buy the F3 and benchmark both drives then if the F3 lost I would add it to my mediasart server, heres my results:
--------------------------
HD Tune (Spinpoint F3)
min MB/s: 76.2
Max MB/s: 144.2
Avg MB/s: 119.1
Access time: 13.3ms
Burst speed: 159.8MB/s
CPU usage: 4.5%
--------------------------
HD Tune (Cheetah)
min MB/s: 47.5
Max MB/s: 72.9
Avg MB/s: 63.3
Access time: 5.8ms
Burst speed: 73.3 MB/s
CPU usage: 1.9%
--------------------------
Crystal Diskmark (Spinpoint F3)
Seq Read: 151.1MB/s
Seq Write: 150.1MB/s
512K Read: 48.55MB/s
512K Write: 59.80MB/s
4K Read: 0.58MB/s
4K Write: 1.084MB/s
4K QD32 Read: 1.146MB/s
4K QD32 Write: 1.1MB/s
--------------------------
Crystal Diskmark (Cheetah)
Seq Read: 76.32MB/s
Seq Write: 67.33MB/s
512K Read: 51.71MB/s
512K Write: 42.59MB/s
4K Read: 1.271MB/s
4K Write: 2.389MB/s
4K QD32 Read: 3.344MB/s
4K QD32 Write: 2.687MB/s
--------------------------
Well thats pretty conclusive, being limited to the 160MB/s bandwidth of the U160 controller didnt effect the Cheetah as a single drive wasnt enough to bottleneck the bus. The F3 is very impressive, it may have been battling an 8 year old opponant but the retail price gap makes up for that. for large sustained file transfers the F3 is the man however I am more interested in the access time and the ability to read a lot of small files very fast and in this area the Cheetah manages to stay ahead so It will be the drive I use and the F3 will find a new home im my Mediasmart server where its cpacity will actually be put ot use.
I hope my research is of use to anyone else who needs to make a similar decision (because old U320 drives on a U160 bus Vs SATA2 Juggernauts is a very common question ^^)