HD Tach - Seagate 7200.10 320GB

Ste99 · 7 Jan 2007 at 03:30

Not sure how to interpret these results, but I have a feeling this drive isn't performing as it should. It is very loud too

rpstewart · 7 Jan 2007 at 08:37

The graph looks fine, it will taill off towards the end of the disk because the data density drops towards the inside of the disk which causes a reduction in the transfer rate because less data is passing under the head per revolution.

The burst speed is low, probably because the SATA1 jumper is still on the drive. Taking this off will improve the burst number but it's unlikely you'll notice much difference doing it.

Carol Steele · 8 Jan 2007 at 21:34

For reference here is the result from one of my Seagate 320Gb drives

Your burst rate would appear to be substantially lower than mine though. RPStewart suggested that removing the pin might not make much difference. My drives now have the pin removed which limits the drive to SATA 1 performance - I wonder if this accounts for the difference in the burst speed.

El Jimben · 8 Jan 2007 at 23:25

Carol Steele said:
For reference here is the result from one of my Seagate 320Gb drives

Your burst rate would appear to be substantially lower than mine though. RPStewart suggested that removing the pin might not make much difference. My drives now have the pin removed which limits the drive to SATA 1 performance - I wonder if this accounts for the difference in the burst speed.

Yes it does. I think RP meant that it wouldn't affect the results in terms of average read time, random access time etc.

Mattus · 9 Jan 2007 at 16:18

Pretty fast drives. The jumper is still attached as my mobo doesn't support SATA2.

Sniper123 · 9 Jan 2007 at 20:19

My Seagate 320GB arrived today.My Maxtor burst rate was 120MB/sec, My Seagate 320Gb is 259MB/sec.Maxtor average read was 54MB/sec, My Seagate 320GB is 69.5MB/sec

Overall I'm very pleased indeed.

Ste99 · 9 Jan 2007 at 22:17

Would it be able to remove the jumper with my mobo in my sig?

Im thinking about getting another of these drives, and then using a smaller raptor as the main drive and 2 x 320gb as the backup

rpstewart · 9 Jan 2007 at 23:21

Ste99 said:
Would it be able to remove the jumper with my mobo in my sig?

Yup, that board should support SATA2. You can remove the jumper for most boards, it's only there to force the drive into SATA1 mode for boards which are incapable of doing it themselves.

Ste99 · 9 Jan 2007 at 23:47

Thanks for your help again. I'll take the jumper of tomorrow and try hd tach again

Ste99 · 13 Jan 2007 at 16:51

Found time to take off the jumper - what a bugger it was to get off !

Here is HDTach now:

Burst Speed is up about 110mb/sec.