As you know, from the speed of work hard drive The speed of the computer directly depends. Sometimes it is this factor that becomes a bottleneck in system performance. Therefore, the optimal solution today is to replace the hard drive with an SSD (solid-state drive). They are fundamentally different from each other in structure and operating algorithm. But that's not what we're talking about now.
In this whole story we are interested in real speed work hard disk or SSD. How to measure it and what to look for when switching to an SSD drive?
A program for testing the speed of drives - CrystalDiskMark
The most common and convenient program for speed testing is CrystalDiskMark. You can download it:
- from the official website of the developer - ;
- from our website site – .
It does not require installation, just archive and launch the desired version - 32 bit or 64 bit.
Version selection
Now let's look a little at the settings.
The main ones are focused on the main window:
Settings
In order:
- Number of checks. The default value is 5, but for ordinary tasks 3 is enough. The result is calculated as the average value of all checks.
- file size. This is the volume of the test file, by writing/reading which the results of the first test will be calculated. You can leave the default 1 GiB.
- Disc selection. We select the disk whose speed we want to test.
To get real performance indicators of the speed of a disk, especially an SSD, it is important that there is at least 15-20% volume. For example, if you have a 120 GB disk, you should have at least 18-24 GB free on it. Also close any programs that put a lot of disk use, such as booting.
The remaining settings do not play a fundamental role during testing.
Then select the disk whose speed you want to check and press the button ALL to run all tests.
Let's run the test
After finishing the disk speed test, the program will display results that we will analyze.
1 line – SeqQ32T1– writing and reading a file of 1 GB in size, with a depth of 32 using 1 thread, is checked.
2nd line – 4 KQ32T1– blocks of 4 KB in size are written in random order with a depth of 32 using 1 thread.
3 line – Seq– analogue of the first test (Seq Q32T1), only with a depth of 1.
4 line – 4 K– analogue of the second test (4K Q32T1), only with a depth of 1.
The left column shows the speed reading, on right - records. Unit - Megabytes per seconds u.
Here are the results for a typical 320GB hard drive:
What is important to pay attention to? On the second and fourth lines (tests 4 KQ32T1 And 4 K). It is files ranging in size from 4 to 8 KB that most often participate in the operation of the system. Most of the libraries that the operating system uses (dll libraries) have a similar size. Therefore, these parameters play a key role in the speed of the system.
First line (test value SeqQ32T1) shows the speed of copying large, integral files. For example, movies or disk images. But it does not fundamentally affect the speed of the system.
The criterion for assessing the performance of any digital information carrier is the speed of writing and reading data. This indicator can directly affect the performance of the computer where this hard drive, SSD or USB drive is installed.
If you want to check the read and write speed of your hard drive, at which your drive is capable of operating, then you need to download free program CrystalDiskMark for Windows. In addition to calculating the above parameters, the capabilities of this program can be used to check the characteristics that the manufacturer indicates on their devices.
During the installation process of the program, you can determine the interface language for yourself; you can specify Russian as the main language. Next, after the first launch of the program, a dialog box will appear in front of you. We won’t complicate anything here, - all functions of CrystalDiskMark will be available and understandable to you from the very beginning, because the developer took the time to design the user interface, making it extremely convenient.
Before running the read and write speed test of hard drives (HDD) and SSDs, you should select its type. There are four of them in the program.
- CrystalDiskMark will write sequential blocks of 1024 kilobytes in size
- The writing procedure will be random, and the block size will be 512 kilobytes.
- The third type of test will take place when writing stacks, the size of which will be equal to 4 kilobytes.
- Random write test with a block size of 4 kilobytes and a queue depth of 32 (for AHCI and NCQ).
In addition, when running the test mode you have chosen, you need to determine the type of data that will be recorded during the testing process. When set to Standard, CrystalDiskMark will record random ones and zeros.
With this type of testing, the response time of the hard drive may be slightly overestimated. For drives of type SSD is better select the record type All 0x00, then the recorded data will be represented as zeros. The third type, All 0xFF, will produce random records that will consist entirely of ones.
Once you have determined all the test parameters, you can select the number of write cycles that CrystalDiskMark will perform during testing (from one to nine). The final parameter of the HDD read and write test will be to determine the size of the data written in its process (from 50 megabytes).
After selecting all the above options, you will need to select the media to be scanned from the list. After this, all testing can be started by clicking on the “Start” button.” If you want to carry out all types of diagnostics automatically, the “All” button activates this option.
It is important to note that before starting the scan you should close all active programs. Their work can negatively affect the results. We recommend download CrystalDiskMark for Windows, as the most practical program for determining the read and write speed of hard and SSD drives.
Hello admin! I decided the other day to buy a solid state drive! I came to a computer store and told the seller:
Sell me the fastest SSD!
and they answered me:
Here you are, Kingston HyperX 3K (120 GB, SATA-III) speed 555 MB/s, excellent SSD, it doesn't get faster.
Prove it!
Apparently they wanted to sell me this SSD so much that they installed it on the computer and ran the test in the CrystalDiskMark program, then showed the test result, here is the screenshot:
Sequential read speed of 541 MB/s and write speed of 493 MB/s, I even took a photo of it with my phone.
In short, I bought this SSD, came home, connected it to my computer, then downloaded and launched the “CrystalDiskMark” program and ran the same test, but the result was worse!
Sequential read speed of 489 MB/s and write speed of 127 MB/s. Why?
In the store, the test was carried out on a computer with an Intel® Core™ i5 processor and 4GB of memory, my computer is more powerful and is built on the basis Intel processor® Core™ i7 and has 8GB of memory.
Explain to the admin what the catch is, otherwise I won’t sleep, after all, this SSD costs 3 and a half rubles.
Hi all! Yes, this can happen, friends, you just need to know how to use the CrystalDiskMark program. Now I will show you everything.
- Note: You may be interested in our other articles on SSDs
We will conduct the SSD test in the CrystalDiskMark 3 0 3 program
The program can be downloaded from the official website http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html
CrystalDiskMark tests our SSD this way:.
All: All 4 tests are performed (Seq, 512K, 4K, 4K QD32);
Seq: Sequential write/read test (block size= 1024Kb);
512K: Random write/read test (block size = 512Kb);
4K: Random write/read test (block size = 4Kb);
4K QD32: Random write/read test (block size = 4Kb, queue depth = 32) for NCQ and AHCI;
The final result.
First, properly test your SSD or any other HDD! The fastest SSD will read and write information is the area filled with only zeros. To do this, in CrystalDiskMark, select file from the menu File->Test Data->All 0x0000 (Fill).
I also have this Kingston HyperX 3K SSD (120 GB, SATA-III) and now I will do a simple test.
IN operating system SSD drive under the letter D:, which means in the program settings select the letter D: and click
The test of our SSD for sequential read and write speed begins!
In a minute we get the result. Sequential read and write speed 543 MB/s (read), 507 MB/s (write)
Now we do the test differently. File->Test Data->Default (Random)
After a minute, we get a result completely different from when testing with the All 0x0000 (Fill) option. Sequential read and write speed 499 MB/s (read), 149 MB/s (write)
It is also important for the SSD to work properly to connect it to your motherboard correctly. All solid state drives have a high-speed SATA 3.0 interface (6 Gbit/s) and your motherboard probably has such connectors. For example, my mother's ASUS board P8Z77-V PRO has four SATA 6 Gb/s ports and they are marked accordingly SATA 6G, which means we connect the SSD according to the marking.
To connect the SATA 6 Gb/s SSD interface, use a native SATA 6 Gb/s data cable!
A small free Windows program called CrystalDiskMark is designed to determine read and write speeds hard drives– HDD, SSD, USB storage devices. This is the simplest tool aimed at ordinary users. Two editions of the program are available on the official website of the program - the usual Standard Edition and Shizuku Edition with an interface designed in the style of Japanese cartoons. Both editions are available for download in portable and regular versions. When installing the latter into the system, you must carefully follow the steps of the installation wizard to avoid incidental installation into the system. unnecessary programs.
Having launched CrystalDiskMark, in a small window of the program we will see a table where the test results will be shown in the future. At the top of the window we will find individual configurable parameters; these are the initial data for starting testing. The program does not recognize disks, flash drives, or other storage devices as integral devices. Before starting testing, in the right corner of the window you must select the letter of the HDD, SSD or connected flash drive partition.
A drop-down list with numerical indicators is the read and write cycles of a special test file, which will be temporarily placed by the CrystalDiskMark program on the disk partition or flash drive being examined. The size of this test file is selected in the drop-down list next to it. Preset 5 cycles and a test file size of 1 GB are the optimal parameters for testing the HDD. These parameters can be changed to avoid unnecessary wear and tear on the SSD (or, for example, to reduce testing time), reducing the number of read and write cycles by up to 3 times. The file size can be changed to a smaller one and select, for example, 100 MB.
CrystalDiskMark provides 4 types of tests. "All" button on the left top corner window runs all data reading and writing tests provided by the program. The buttons below are buttons for running each test individually. The “Seq Q32T1” and “Seq” buttons run tests of sequential reading and writing of data into one thread with a disk queue depth of 32 and 1, respectively. The “4K Q32T1” and “4K” buttons are intended for tests of random reading and writing of blocks with a size of 4 KB with disk queue indicators of 32 and 1, respectively. All these tests will show the average speed of reading and writing data under their conditions. The reading speed will be displayed in the “Read” column, and the writing speed in the “Write” column.
If there is a question about checking the average speed of reading and writing data promised by the manufacturer or seller of the hard drive, you need to focus on the results of the “Seq” and “Seq Q32T1” tests. Indicators for testing sequential reading and writing data are usually indicated in the characteristics of hard drives based on the principle of representing the most beneficial data about the product.
In this article we will find out how and to what extent the SSD affects performance in real-life conditions of use.If you have long wanted to see a real SSD performance in comparison with traditional HDDs, or if you were thinking about migrating your system to an SSD, but didn’t know if it was worth it, this article is for you!
There is no point in testing the disk in ideal conditions little, because This doesn’t happen in real life, so I deliberately consider tests using examples from real life, when the disk is filled with thousands of files, games, cache files of browsers and video processing programs, etc.
So, grab some popcorn, sit back, and let's get down to business.
What is the problem with HDD drives?
The problem is that ordinary HDD drive and, which we still use in computers, have not changed since the 1990x wiki, when it was first decided to ref make HDDs operating at 4300 rpm and 5400 rpm (revolutions per minute)It was 2016 - 20-25 years later, we still have the same 5400 rpm drives running at 60-90 MB/s, but user needs have long since changed, we are now working with huge projects and big amount files in multitasking mode, requiring large bandwidth and disk responsiveness, even if several other programs are already running in the background.
Since 2001, some manufacturers began to produce consumer segment drives operating at 7200 rpm, instead of 5400, but this did not change anything, the increase from 90 MB/s to 120 MB/s (33% - 5400-7200) is still does not give a significant effect.
Tests | synthetic (potential disk speeds)
Below is a synthetic test comparing the performance of the most important aspect - the disk's performance with small data blocks (specifically 4 KB):During operations - reading (read)
- HDD is slower 94 times(0.68 MB/s vs. 63.6 MB/s), compared to SSD
- HDD is slower 53 times(0.36 MB/s vs. 19 MB/s), compared to SSD
- HDD is slower 178 times(0.78 MB/s vs. 139 MB/s), compared to SSD
- HDD is slower 86 times(0.64 MB/s vs. 55 MB/s), compared to SSD
Why are we mainly interested in the result of disk operation with small blocks of data?
The thing is, whether you open a browser, or import a project consisting of hundreds of files into a program like Unreal Engine, no matter what you do, in all such cases, the computer is processing a huge number of small blocks of data (mostly reading , so read speed is usually more important than write speed)
Sequential speed (“Seq Q32T1” and “Seq” in the screenshot above) is important when writing/reading large files (MB or GB), which happens less frequently and does not affect the responsiveness of the system to the same extent as working with thousands of small ones blocks.
Why are Apple computers so much more responsive than regular PCs and “never” slow down?
In the computer world, there is an opinion that the whole problem is in the operating system - Mac OSX on Apple computers“optimized”, “never slows down”, “no blue screens system failure"Maybe it's because:
Apple computers (not counting the cheapest configurations):
have all the same components, except one - m.2 SSD drive / proprietary analogues:
- Running at speeds (700 - 1100 MB/s) over NVMe, with the ability to handle 65,000 wait threads executing 65,000 commands each
- Having data loss prevention systems, overheating protection systems that help prevent errors and freezes when working with several GB of data consisting mainly of small blocks, in multitasking mode
- etc. and so on.
While, experience with Windows PC
was formed while working with computers that have:
- Regular HDD 5400 rpm (noisy and vibrating during operation, due to the presence of moving parts) capable of processing 1 standby thread executing 32 commands
- Running at speed (60 - 110 MB/s)
- Constantly forcing all users to observe the “Not responding” state, observing the mockingly slow response when working in multitasking mode, not only with small, but also with relatively large blocks of data.
Leaving all the other components of the computer in place, swap the disks, putting the 5400 rpm HDD on the Apple, and the m.2 SSD on the Windows PC, and it turns out that the disk is really the most important (for speed and responsiveness) part of the computer, because a regular HDD drive is very slow, and forces the entire system to wait until it finishes processing all queues of tasks from programs and the OS, which slows down greatly when working in multitasking mode, having, in addition, applications doing work in the background, which can be quite a lot - from auto-updating project dependencies to tasks assigned for processing by the user himself.
Now, let's move on to the tests!
Test configuration | Real-life tests
All test results were obtained on a laptop with these components:OS: Windows 10
CPU: i7 3610qm
RAM: 12 GB
Subjects:
HDD: Toshiba MQ01ABF050 | 465 GB (SATA)
SSD: Kingston HyperX Fury | 120 GB (SATA)
| Updating clean Windows 7 to Windows 10
SSD Total time: ~9 minutes - 188% faster (2.9 times)HDD Total time: ~26 minutes
The first 4 lines are the process Windows updates 10
The last line is a test to make sure the update process is complete and the PC is ready to go.
| Windows 10 startup time
SSD Time Windows startup and programs in the tray: 0:16 | Total time: 0:23 - 217% faster (3.17 times)HDD Windows startup time and tray programs: 0:48 | Total time: 1:13
PDF opened immediately after desktop appeared
The countdown ended after loading programs in the tray and fully opening PDF file
| Application launch time
SSD Application launch time | Total time: 1:44 - 274% faster (3.74 times)HDD Application launch time | Total time: 6:29
| Application task execution time
SSD Performing tasks in applications | Total time: 2:29 - 175% faster (2.75 times)HDD Performing tasks in applications | Total time: 6:50
results
Judging by the tests and sensations, our experimental HyperX Fury SSD outperformed the HDD in all respects in 100% of cases, solving the headache in all areas requiring high system responsiveness, such as game creation, video / audio processing, particle simulation, post-processing, work with hundreds of GB of data or thousands of OpenEXR.After switching to an SSD drive, there are no longer noticeable problems with stuttering, whether it is a processing speed issue in AE, due to the fact that your sublime text downloads dependency updates using 100% of the disk at the time, or stopping work from -due to the fact that BVH is being calculated in the background before rendering in blender, or while Maya, for several hours, creates alembic cache files, preventing you from even accessing the Internet without freezing.
Not noticeably more and no waiting until Audacity hangs, after reducing the audio track, every 2 minutes and no waiting until all HDR or EXR in the folder are loaded each time for 1-3 minutes (!). You no longer have to stop one application in order to speed up the responsiveness of others, because... it loaded the disk at 100%. You don’t have to wait a few seconds after each action in Unreal Engine, for any aspect of the work, from importing files to applying and testing assets.
Not to mention the speed of rebooting the system after updates, which happens in seconds instead of minutes, and opening applications, which now happens “relatively” instantly.
Etc., etc., if you have encountered all this, you understand me well and there is no point in continuing to write resolved problems, but if you do not understand what we are talking about, most likely you will become bored reading a couple of hundred more problems resolved with using SSD, Anyway.
By personal experience, I noticed that while you are working on a computer with a HDD, you don’t notice how unproductive and irritating your work is due to constant expectations and the “not responding” status, especially if your work on the computer is not limited to surfing the Internet.
Bottom line - do you need an SSD?
If you need a disk:- Operating absolutely silently (unlike HDD, which has moving parts that create noise and vibration)
- A disc that doesn't make you nervous because of endless expectations and slow work programs from the stage of opening the program - working in it - and before closing it, only because, unlike all other PC components and programs, the speed of operation HDD drives The consumer segment has not evolved over the past 20 years.
- If you need a disk that has a speed and responsiveness advantage over the HDD several times over in all types of tasks, from Internet browsing to multitasking typical for code / game development, working with 3D graphics, animation, particle simulation / video processing, audio / etc.