Hard drive performance

Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance? My main drive is a
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 with the latest firmware (CC49). Motherboard is
Asus P6X58D PREMIUM with latest drivers and BIOS. The HD is connected
through the Intel ICH10R Controller, with SATA 3.0 Gb/s. There is a Marvell
Controller with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, but ASUS specs say these are for "data
hard drives only". This has deterred me from connecting the boot drive to
one of the Marvell ports, and I'm not sure that would help anyway. This is
a Win7/64 Pro install.

HD Tune results are as follows:
Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 2.0 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 119.6 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 72.3 MB/s
Access Time : 22.3 ms
Burst Rate : 178.0 MB/s
CPU Usage : 1.1%

KCB wrote:
> Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance? My main drive is a
> Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 with the latest firmware (CC49). Motherboard
> is Asus P6X58D PREMIUM with latest drivers and BIOS. The HD is
> connected through the Intel ICH10R Controller, with SATA 3.0 Gb/s.
> There is a Marvell Controller with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, but ASUS specs
> say these are for "data hard drives only". This has deterred me from
> connecting the boot drive to one of the Marvell ports, and I'm not sure
> that would help anyway. This is a Win7/64 Pro install.
>
> HD Tune results are as follows:
> Read transfer rate
> Transfer Rate Minimum : 2.0 MB/s
> Transfer Rate Maximum : 119.6 MB/s
> Transfer Rate Average : 72.3 MB/s
> Access Time : 22.3 ms
> Burst Rate : 178.0 MB/s
> CPU Usage : 1.1%

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018

"Issue 2

Before Advanced Format disks were available, NTFS assumed that the
logical sector size that was exposed by the disk interface was equal
to the physical sector size of the disk. Although NTFS was originally
designed to theoretically support larger sectors sizes, NTFS assumed
that these two sector sizes were equal. When NTFS performs buffered
writes at the end of a file in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
NTFS pads the write operation to the end of the sector size which is
exposed by the disk interface (the logical sector size). This behavior
guarantees sector alignment. However, because the size of a logical
sector of a 512e drive is 512 bytes, the buffered write does not align
to the physical sector size of the drive’s hard disk. This causes the
Advanced Format disk to internally update the 512-byte logical sector
within its 4KB physical sector, which can result in performance and
reliability issues.

This hotfix introduces behavior to NTFS which makes sure that buffered
writes at the end of the file are padded to the reported physical
sector size of the disk.

This issue can manifest itself with everyday applications on an
Advanced Format disk. However, this issue occurs most frequently
when you perform many small writes, such as using the ImageX
command-line tool in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 to
apply a Microsoft Windows Image (.wim file) to an Advanced Format disk.
Without the hotfix, ImageX takes significantly longer to complete the
operation than if you were to apply the same operation to a
traditional hard disk.
"

You could have a disk with 4KB internal sectors, with 512e emulation.
And then it's a matter of what the OS is able to determine, about
the true dimensions of the drive, such as physical or logical
sector size. Windows 7 likely could have handled a declared 4KB
sector just fine, but the 512e emulation provided for operation
with older OSes, may "slightly shoot in the foot" lots of things.

If you're bored, I'm sure there is plenty of material to read.

I've noticed some weirdness about my 500GB drive, that makes
me wonder how it really works inside. And if you can't get
straight answers from reporting utilities (or from the product
datasheet), it's pretty hard to conclude anything.

One thing I noticed, is optimal commands in "dd" on older drives,
are no longer optimal on my new 500GB single platter drives.
The new drive does better with "counter-intuitive" smaller block
sizes (which means, finally, the cache memory chip is actually
being used). It can make a factor of three difference in some
of the things I attempt with it. And it means fiddling around
until I find the most efficient command to use (re-start the
command, if the measured performance is wrong). I use the
Performance plugin, amongst other things, for monitoring.

Your "Transfer Rate Minimum" is pretty low. That could be
some bad blocks. Try the HDTune bad block scan, and let
it run from end to end on the disk. You're likely to see
solid green blocks, so it's not like I expect to see any
red blocks in the test. Then, rerun the transfer rate benchmark
right after that. See if the curve looks at all different.
HDTune should be less affected by alignment issues (but you
never know absolutely for sure with these things). My 500GB
drive "perked up", after being scanned once - technical
explanation unknown, since resolving pending bad blocks
is done on writes. Sequential reads really shouldn't do anything,
except to "sweep the dirt off the platter" :-)

Paul

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:22:23 -0500, "KCB" <>
wrote:

>Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance?

I'm told replacing it with an SSD makes a significant difference but
probably isn't what you had in mind.

--

Char Jackson

On 12/11/2011 23:13, Char Jackson wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:22:23 -0500, "KCB"<>
> wrote:
>
>> Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance?
>
> I'm told replacing it with an SSD makes a significant difference but
> probably isn't what you had in mind.
>

What's the largest SSD available?

Ed

"Char Jackson" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:22:23 -0500, "KCB" <>
> wrote:
>
>>Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance?
>
> I'm told replacing it with an SSD makes a significant difference but
> probably isn't what you had in mind.
>
> --
>
> Char Jackson

:-) Actually, I _was_ looking into that, but would still like to get the
most performance I can out of this disk.

"Paul" <> wrote in message
news:j9mbtj$6ec$...
> KCB wrote:
>> Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance? My main drive is a
>> Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 with the latest firmware (CC49). Motherboard
>> is Asus P6X58D PREMIUM with latest drivers and BIOS. The HD is connected
>> through the Intel ICH10R Controller, with SATA 3.0 Gb/s. There is a
>> Marvell Controller with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, but ASUS specs say these are
>> for "data hard drives only". This has deterred me from connecting the
>> boot drive to one of the Marvell ports, and I'm not sure that would help
>> anyway. This is a Win7/64 Pro install.
>>
>> HD Tune results are as follows:
>> Read transfer rate
>> Transfer Rate Minimum : 2.0 MB/s
>> Transfer Rate Maximum : 119.6 MB/s
>> Transfer Rate Average : 72.3 MB/s
>> Access Time : 22.3 ms
>> Burst Rate : 178.0 MB/s
>> CPU Usage : 1.1%
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018
>
> "Issue 2
>
> Before Advanced Format disks were available, NTFS assumed that the
> logical sector size that was exposed by the disk interface was equal
> to the physical sector size of the disk. Although NTFS was originally
> designed to theoretically support larger sectors sizes, NTFS assumed
> that these two sector sizes were equal. When NTFS performs buffered
> writes at the end of a file in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
> NTFS pads the write operation to the end of the sector size which is
> exposed by the disk interface (the logical sector size). This behavior
> guarantees sector alignment. However, because the size of a logical
> sector of a 512e drive is 512 bytes, the buffered write does not align
> to the physical sector size of the drive’s hard disk. This causes the
> Advanced Format disk to internally update the 512-byte logical sector
> within its 4KB physical sector, which can result in performance and
> reliability issues.
>
> This hotfix introduces behavior to NTFS which makes sure that buffered
> writes at the end of the file are padded to the reported physical
> sector size of the disk.
>
> This issue can manifest itself with everyday applications on an
> Advanced Format disk. However, this issue occurs most frequently
> when you perform many small writes, such as using the ImageX
> command-line tool in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 to
> apply a Microsoft Windows Image (.wim file) to an Advanced Format
> disk.
> Without the hotfix, ImageX takes significantly longer to complete the
> operation than if you were to apply the same operation to a
> traditional hard disk.
> "
>
> You could have a disk with 4KB internal sectors, with 512e emulation.
> And then it's a matter of what the OS is able to determine, about
> the true dimensions of the drive, such as physical or logical
> sector size. Windows 7 likely could have handled a declared 4KB
> sector just fine, but the 512e emulation provided for operation
> with older OSes, may "slightly shoot in the foot" lots of things.
>
> If you're bored, I'm sure there is plenty of material to read.
>
> I've noticed some weirdness about my 500GB drive, that makes
> me wonder how it really works inside. And if you can't get
> straight answers from reporting utilities (or from the product
> datasheet), it's pretty hard to conclude anything.
>
> One thing I noticed, is optimal commands in "dd" on older drives,
> are no longer optimal on my new 500GB single platter drives.
> The new drive does better with "counter-intuitive" smaller block
> sizes (which means, finally, the cache memory chip is actually
> being used). It can make a factor of three difference in some
> of the things I attempt with it. And it means fiddling around
> until I find the most efficient command to use (re-start the
> command, if the measured performance is wrong). I use the
> Performance plugin, amongst other things, for monitoring.
>
> Your "Transfer Rate Minimum" is pretty low. That could be
> some bad blocks. Try the HDTune bad block scan, and let
> it run from end to end on the disk. You're likely to see
> solid green blocks, so it's not like I expect to see any
> red blocks in the test. Then, rerun the transfer rate benchmark
> right after that. See if the curve looks at all different.
> HDTune should be less affected by alignment issues (but you
> never know absolutely for sure with these things). My 500GB
> drive "perked up", after being scanned once - technical
> explanation unknown, since resolving pending bad blocks
> is done on writes. Sequential reads really shouldn't do anything,
> except to "sweep the dirt off the platter" :-)
>
> Paul

Thanks Paul,
I was doing some reading there already, and saw toward the bottom that that
hotfix is included with Win7 SP1. I have SP1 installed, so am assuming I am
covered by that.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 23:25:54 +0000, Ed Cryer <>
wrote:

>On 12/11/2011 23:13, Char Jackson wrote:
>> On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:22:23 -0500, "KCB"<>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance?
>>
>> I'm told replacing it with an SSD makes a significant difference but
>> probably isn't what you had in mind.
>>
>
>What's the largest SSD available?

A quick check at Newegg turned up this 1TB beast.

<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227753>

It's a hybrid, though, claiming to be intelligent enough to store
frequently accessed data on the SSD portion and infrequently accessed
data on the spinning platter.

This next one seems to be a pure SSD with a capacity of 960GB.

<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227713>


--

Char Jackson

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:22:23 -0500, "KCB" <>
wrote:

>Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance? My main drive is a
>Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 with the latest firmware (CC49). Motherboard is
>Asus P6X58D PREMIUM with latest drivers and BIOS. The HD is connected
>through the Intel ICH10R Controller, with SATA 3.0 Gb/s. There is a Marvell
>Controller with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, but ASUS specs say these are for "data
>hard drives only". This has deterred me from connecting the boot drive to
>one of the Marvell ports, and I'm not sure that would help anyway. This is
>a Win7/64 Pro install.
>
>HD Tune results are as follows:
>Read transfer rate
>Transfer Rate Minimum : 2.0 MB/s
>Transfer Rate Maximum : 119.6 MB/s
>Transfer Rate Average : 72.3 MB/s
>Access Time : 22.3 ms
>Burst Rate : 178.0 MB/s
>CPU Usage : 1.1%


Don't drive yourself crazy trying to squeeze more performance out of
that (or any other) drive. Just make sure you've got Write Caching
enabled in Device Manager and be resolute that performance is the what
it is.

Many factors affect performance; hard drive performance is just one.

A_C

"Agent_C" <agent-c-hates-> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:22:23 -0500, "KCB" <>
> wrote:
>
>>Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance? My main drive is a
>>Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 with the latest firmware (CC49). Motherboard is
>>Asus P6X58D PREMIUM with latest drivers and BIOS. The HD is connected
>>through the Intel ICH10R Controller, with SATA 3.0 Gb/s. There is a
>>Marvell
>>Controller with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, but ASUS specs say these are for
>>"data
>>hard drives only". This has deterred me from connecting the boot drive to
>>one of the Marvell ports, and I'm not sure that would help anyway. This
>>is
>>a Win7/64 Pro install.
>>
>>HD Tune results are as follows:
>>Read transfer rate
>>Transfer Rate Minimum : 2.0 MB/s
>>Transfer Rate Maximum : 119.6 MB/s
>>Transfer Rate Average : 72.3 MB/s
>>Access Time : 22.3 ms
>>Burst Rate : 178.0 MB/s
>>CPU Usage : 1.1%
>
>
> Don't drive yourself crazy trying to squeeze more performance out of
> that (or any other) drive. Just make sure you've got Write Caching
> enabled in Device Manager and be resolute that performance is the what
> it is.
>
> Many factors affect performance; hard drive performance is just one.
>
> A_C

Well, I'm not driving myself crazy, yet, but still can't understand such
mediocre stats. The machine in question doesn't seem slow, but after
reading so many HD and SSD reviews, I have determined that it MUST be slow.
j/k

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 17:48:07 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:

> On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 23:25:54 +0000, Ed Cryer <>
> wrote:
>
>>On 12/11/2011 23:13, Char Jackson wrote:
>>> On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:22:23 -0500, "KCB"<>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Anybody have any tips on improving HD performance?
>>>
>>> I'm told replacing it with an SSD makes a significant difference but
>>> probably isn't what you had in mind.
>>>
>>
>>What's the largest SSD available?
>
> A quick check at Newegg turned up this 1TB beast.
>
> <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227753>
>
> It's a hybrid, though, claiming to be intelligent enough to store
> frequently accessed data on the SSD portion and infrequently accessed
> data on the spinning platter.
>
> This next one seems to be a pure SSD with a capacity of 960GB.
>
> <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227713>

And reduced $280, so now it's only $2419.99. I guess I'll get two or
three :-)

Oh - maybe not - it's only SATA II. This MB has two SATA 600 ports.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)