Data Storage Device Benchmarks
Roy Longbottom
Summary and General Operation
Many of my published reports include performance details of data storage devices, running on PCs, using DOS, Windows and Linux, Raspberry Pi systems and Android based tablets and phones. These included main drives and those connected via networks and USB. The main purpose of this report is to identify the range of available information and links to download benchmarks and program source codes. Example results are provided.DiskGraf and CDDVDSpd - My first disk drive benchmark was DiskGraf, produced in 2000, that concentrated on measuring writing and reading speeds of large files at different block sizes, but with a minor random access test. An example graph is provided for an SSD drive in 2021. My similar vintage CDDVDSpeed benchmark included measurements for numerous small files and was also run accessing disk drives. Example results are provided from 1994/95 PCs and one from 2014, with a partitioned drive. Comparisons, over 10 years, indicates more than 100 times improvement handling large files but much less with the small ones. Also shown is better 2014 performance on the secondary D: partition.
Disk Drive Results - The next stage was to produce DriveSpeed and, its minor variation, LanSpeed benchmarks to run from Linux Terminals, the from Windows’ commands. This added random access measurements to the mix. A 2021 log file is shown for the SSD mentioned above. There is also a table showing results on a small range of PCs with partitioned disk drives and others for USB connected disk drives with FAT and NTFS formatting. These show some wide variations in performance, particularly with small files.
Flash Memory Results - The next section mainly covers USB and SD flash memory drives, again showing FAT and NTFS formatting effects, this time testing four USB drives, from 2004 to 2014, on different PCs. A couple are also included from SD cards and one for SSD. This time, formatting options produced similar performance, except for the older USB stick and an SD card. Comparing the slowest USB 2 drive and fastest USB 3 variety, both on the fastest CPU, the latter combination was faster by an average of 28 times on large files, 2.4/193 times for random read/write and 4.5/115/13 times for small read/FAT write/NTFS write.
PC Broad Comparisons - Then there is a short list of main and USB drives, mainly being exercised on the same PC and providing broad comparisons. A main difference was the exceptionally fast random access with the SSD, that was particularly slow on writing to the hard drive. The tests were intended to show that a one number performance rating for storage devices is not a good idea.
LANspeed - Results included demonstrate inconsistent PC to PC Gigabit LAN performance.
Android versions are available with the latest DriveSpd apk applications directly downloadable from the first four of the identified reports. The latest versions of Android handled drive I/O in a different way, restricting test capabilities to measuring large file writing and reading to follow write/reboot./read procedures. Results provided show maximum main drive reading speed performance increasing from 49 MB/second for a 2012 Nexus 7, to 450 MB/second for a 2021 mid priced phone.
Raspberry Pi - Links are provided for all my 12 reports from 2014 to 2021. Numerous results are included covering the main SD drive and other connections via USB 2 and 3, also those from LAN and WiFi network connections. Main drive performance initially depended on the choice of SD card. Later, USB booting allowed faster USB 3 flash memory and disk drives to be used. Example SD results show a near six time improvement in reading large files but not much ln some other areas. USB 3 speeds up to 240 MB/second are shown. LanSpeed results are also included at 1 Gbps and 100 Mbps LAN and 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz WiFi. Appropriate 10 or 2 times large file speed improvements are shown but next to none on certain small file data transfers.
Historic Performance - This includes a graph of my interpretation of PC disk drive large file reading speeds over 26 years, suggesting a linear 7.2 MB per second per year, mainly due to lack of improvement in disk rotation time. Random access time could become 200 times less for smaller files that fit in the buffer, with little improvement for large ones that depend on revolution time. Small file performance improvement, over 20 years, was indicated as between 6 and 78 times, depending on the circumstances.
A limited sample of flash drive results is provided, where one interpretation could suggest improvements, in handling large files, could be more like Moore’s Law than a linear yearly gain. Some support of this is also provided for Android devices. Raspberry Pi historic performance gains due to configuration enhancements is also mentioned.
Stress Tests - A standard stress testing program is also covered, This handles files with numerous blocks with different repetitive binary values, aimed at identifying data pattern conscious problems, with parameters for file sizes and extended running times. This uses the same procedures as my 1970’s Fortran program that was used during hundreds of UK Government and University computer system acceptance tests. It was the most successful program for identifying design issues on the most expensive computers.
DiskGraf Benchmark
My original year 2000 input/output benchmark was DiskGraf, a full Windows application that measured speeds of serial writing and reading, then cached (DMA) and random access reading. Results are logged in a text file and graphically for serial operation. The benchmark is run by copying it to the target device, then clicking on on the icon. Details are provided in
DiskGraf Results.htm.
This contains detailed results on 140 devices, including normal and SCSI disks, SSD, network and USB drives.
The document includes a link to a zip file containing the program and source code. The benchmark still runs on current systems where the following graph, for an SSD drive, was produced 1n late 2021.
CD and DVD Benchmark
DiskGraf did not include performance measurements of writing and reading small files. So, this option was added to my
CDDVDSpd Benchmark,
that initially only dealt with large files. The reasons being slow performance issues associated with compact flash devices and exploring "Optimise for Quick Removal" and "Optimise for Performance" property settings, also severe performance degradation by anti-virus software on writing small files. Numerous results are provided in
CDDVDSpd Results.htm (Archive).
covering disk, compact flash, USB, network, CD and DVD drives available between 1994 and 2014. Following are first and last results for disk drives.
Large Files Small Files Per File Delete
Key CPU Disk Win Format MB Write Read KB Write Read Write Read All No.
MHz RPM & Mode MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s msecs msecs Secs
Disk486 66 3600 95 F16 1 1.0 1.2 2 0.06 0.07 31.7 28.6 2.0 521
1994 16.7ms 8 1.0 1.2 16 0.29 0.48 54.4 33.5
DiskSea0 100 3600 95 F16 SL 1 1.5 1.2 2 0.19 0.14 10.5 14.7 0.7 521
1995 16.7ms 8 1.5 1.2 16 0.93 0.91 17.2 17.6
DiskQua0 200 4500 NT F32 1 4.0 3.0 2 0.32 0.16 6.3 12.3 1.1 521
1995 13.3ms 8 5.0 3.9 16 2.02 1.90 7.9 8.4
To
DiskWDB1 3700 7200 864 NTFS 1 24.9 50.6 2 1.65 4.76 1.2 0.4 0.10 521
2014 2 42.5 446.3 4 5.65 10.66 0.7 0.4
D: 64 Bit 4 47.0 102.9 8 10.74 15.47 0.7 0.5
64 MB cache 8 70.8 115.0 16 22.36 33.27 0.7 0.5
16 92.8 178.3 32 39.41 77.88 0.8 0.4
32 102.9 195.5 64 65.00 108.14 1.0 0.6
64 121.1 143.2 128 94.90 136.24 1.3 0.9
DiskWDB1 3700 7200 864 NTFS 1 32.6 30.9 2 0.43 1.11 4.7 1.8 0.12 521
2014 2 35.4 87.1 4 2.48 2.26 1.6 1.8
C: 64 Bit 4 44.1 74.7 8 3.68 2.66 2.2 3.0
64 MB cache 8 62.3 98.2 16 4.59 2.99 3.5 5.4
16 67.3 123.8 32 7.44 5.62 4.3 5.7
32 99.9 126.5 64 13.19 9.84 4.9 6.5
64 118.5 142.4 128 22.59 17.22 5.7 7.4
DriveSpeed Benchmark
The next stage was to produce DriveSpeed and, its minor variation, LanSpeed benchmarks to run from Linux Terminals comprising:
- Writing and Reading Large Files - Five files each of 8 MB, 16 MB and 32 MB are used,
but input parameter is available to increase. System is instructed not to cache the data. - Writing and Reading Cached Data - Five files of 8 MB are used. Performance normally
reflects memory speed. - Reading Bus Speed - The same data is read repetitively at block sizes between 64 KB and
1 MB. This normally reads data from the disk’s buffer to show maximum bus speeds. - Random Reading and Writing Speed - 1 KB blocks are read and written randomly from 7
file sizes between 2 MB and 128 MB. Results reflect the disk's buffer size and rotation speed. - Writing and Reading Small Files - 500 files are written, read and deleted at 6 different
file sizes each between 2 KB and 64 KB. Besides speed, milliseconds per file is provided
to reflect overheads.
The Linux benchmarks are drivespeed32, lanspeed32, drivespeed64 and lanspeed64, available in
linux_disk_usb_lan_benchmarks.tar.gz.
For Windows,
drivespeed32.zip
provides the same information for drivespeed32.exe, that can also be used for testing network drives.
Both Linux and Windows details, including results from main, network and USB drives are in
Linux Disk, USB and LAN Benchmarks HTM file.
Below is the log file from running the Windows version on the SSD covered by the DiskGraf graph above.
Windows SSD Log
Current Directory Path: D:\12drrivespeed\DriveSpeedPAT
Total MB 266240, Free MB 126052, Used MB 140188
Windows Storage Speed Test 32-Bit Version 1.2, Sun Sep 26 11:07:15 2021
Copyright (C) Roy Longbottom 2011
8 MB File 1 2 3 4 5
Writing MB/sec 241.91 222.44 228.99 225.47 162.06
Reading MB/sec 236.01 240.09 239.42 236.90 235.84
16 MB File 1 2 3 4 5
Writing MB/sec 234.85 235.25 234.62 235.24 235.12
Reading MB/sec 238.88 239.47 235.69 242.67 238.28
32 MB File 1 2 3 4 5
Writing MB/sec 240.50 238.97 238.90 242.52 239.83
Reading MB/sec 233.94 242.30 240.57 239.64 240.12
---------------------------------------------------------------------
8 MB Cached File 1 2 3 4 5
Writing MB/sec 846.32 1266.40 1278.87 1287.94 1302.55
Reading MB/sec 2162.29 2413.21 2384.30 2390.31 2397.74
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bus Speed Block KB 64 128 256 512 1024
Reading MB/sec 146.36 179.21 213.64 224.38 229.94
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1 KB Blocks File MB > 2 4 8 16 32 64 128
Random Read msecs 0.15 0.16 0.16 0.17 0.16 0.16 0.16
Random Write msecs 0.07 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05
---------------------------------------------------------------------
500 Files Write Read Delete
File KB MB/sec ms/File MB/sec ms/File Seconds
2 4.52 0.45 9.01 0.23 0.088
4 9.50 0.43 26.76 0.15 0.085
8 17.30 0.47 39.23 0.21 0.084
16 34.83 0.47 79.55 0.21 0.084
32 59.92 0.55 119.32 0.27 0.081
64 101.12 0.65 172.78 0.38 0.084
End of test Sun Sep 26 11:08:05 2021
|
DriveSpeed Disk Drive Results
| Drive and Bus MB/Second | Random Read milliseconds | Random Write milliseconds |
| 500 Files Write milliseconds | 500 Files Read milliseconds | Reading Speeds Over 26 Years |
Drive and Bus MB/Second - Large Files
SATA and PATA Disks - Many of the disk drives are in PCs from the same supplier, indicating maximum data transfer speed increases of more than three times, over 7 years. These disks mainly have more than one partition where, as expected, later partitions, with less data per track, were generally shown to be slower (but see small files).
With caching, the older Operating Systems appear to be slower on writing, later ones probably using deferred lazy writing to update disks over a period. In other cases, and with cached reading, performance depended on memory speed, best being Ci7-2 with four channels. The latter also had 6 Gb/s SATA ports, compared with 3 Gb/s on the others, providing greater than 520 GB/second.
USB Disks - USB 2 performance is dependent on bus speed, in this case, different hardware and software having little impact. For these drives, cached writing did not appear to be supported (appropriate for plugged in devices). USB 2 (High Speed) is rated as 480 Mb/s or 60 MB/s and USB 3.0 as 5 Gb/s or 625 MB/s. Measured USB 3 speeds were not too close to this 10.4 times difference, but 3 to 4 times with data to/from the disk surface or 6.8 times from the disk’s buffer.
Asus USB 3 Boost Option - This is an option selected via Asus AI Suite II. In this area, the only improvement was in the bus speed test, producing 277 MB/second (but see small files).
Max Avg Max Avg Cached Cached
Write Write Read Read Write Read Bus
SATA PATA Disks
C2D-1 HD C: Vis 55 36 59 55 99 2235 227
C2D-1 HD D: Vis 50 37 53 46 56 2475 204
NB-1 HD C: XP 73 60 77 69 55 574 229
NB-1 HD D: XP 78 73 82 78 67 551 221
Phen-1 HD C: Win7 94 69 97 89 1570 2271 273
Phen-1 HD D: Win7 84 82 85 84 1570 2278 262
C2D-1 eS HDX NTFS Vis 111 104 107 96 106 2074 111
Ci7-1 HD Win7 144 118 157 126 1247 1963 358
Ci7-2 HD C: Win8 160 155 178 143 3767 4377 518
Ci7-2 HD D: Win8 154 141 163 162 3985 4814 526
Ci7-2 HD J: Win8 132 127 141 112 3875 4467 527
USB2 Disks
C2D-1 USB HDX NTFS 27 26 34 33 21 2343 34
Phen-1 USB HDX FAT 26 26 31 30 25 1438 31
Phen-1 USB HDX NTFS 28 27 30 30 27 2450 31
Ci7-2 USB HDX FAT 31 30 36 36 30 3312 35
Ci7-2 USB HDX NTFS 30 30 35 34 30 5233 35
Phen-1 HDS1 U2 NTFS 29 28 31 30 28 2425 31
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 32 31 36 35 34 5253 36
USB3 Disks
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 127 111 125 115 205 4708 244
|
Random Read milliseconds
SATA and PATA Disks - Random access time, for the file sizes used here, normally depends on the size of the disk’s buffer (mainly 16 MB, Ci7-2 64 MB), half disk rotation time (4.17 milliseconds at 7200 RPM and 5.56 at 5400 RPM) plus bus or disk data transfer speed (Ci7-2 fastest and disk HDX slowest - see bus speed above). Netbook NB1 was slower than expected.
USB Disks - These have the added overhead of slower data transfer speed. USB 3 provided some improvement when data was in the buffer.
Asus USB 3 Boost Option - This had little effect with random access.
Out of MB
2 4 8 16 32 64 128
SATA PATA Disks RPM
C2D-1 HD C: 7200 0.18 0.19 1.15 8.19 9.42 9.72 10.85
C2D-1 HD D: 0.18 0.19 1.86 4.67 5.54 6.76 6.69
NB-1 HD C: 5400 1.48 7.31 10.54 10.54 7.36 7.34 8.04
NB-1 HD D: 0.23 1.66 5.33 6.43 6.56 6.68 7.92
Phen-1 HD C: 5400 0.11 0.11 0.15 0.16 4.78 7.05 8.10
Phen-1 HD D: 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.13 3.86 6.27 6.92
C2D-1 eS HDX NTFS 7200 0.41 0.46 0.40 3.30 4.74 6.21 6.54
Ci7-1 HD 7200 0.10 0.12 0.11 0.12 0.14 2.14 4.30
Ci7-2 HD C: 7200 0.08 0.12 0.09 0.09 0.27 1.87 3.89
Ci7-2 HD D: 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.11 0.11 1.61 3.38
Ci7-2 HD J: 0.09 0.08 0.09 0.09 0.12 1.40 3.34
USB2 Disks
C2D-1 USB HDX NTFS 7200 0.77 0.72 0.70 3.44 5.13 6.19 6.52
Phen-1 USB HDX FAT 0.98 0.90 1.28 2.87 5.55 6.19 6.70
Phen-1 USB HDX NTFS 1.03 1.02 1.04 3.21 5.27 6.56 7.23
Ci7-2 USB HDX FAT 0.56 0.55 0.65 2.80 5.01 6.00 6.72
Ci7-2 USB HDX NTFS 0.75 0.67 0.72 3.00 5.23 6.41 6.63
Phen-1 HDS1 U2 NTFS 5400 0.76 0.75 0.79 3.02 5.54 6.76 7.81
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 0.38 0.39 0.46 2.94 5.53 6.97 7.82
USB3 Disks
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 0.17 0.16 0.17 2.80 6.34 7.51 8.23
|
Random Write milliseconds
There was more variability on random writing, compared with reading, but access times appeared to be lower when data transfer was not from the disk’s buffer, then higher when cached there. As with random reading, USB 3 could be somewhat faster.
Out of MB
2 4 8 16 32 64 128
SATA PATA Disks
C2D-1 HD C: 1.03 2.46 2.17 3.07 4.72 5.67 5.01
C2D-1 HD D: 1.26 1.53 10.76 2.99 4.21 3.96 3.92
NB-1 HD C: 0.80 1.04 1.91 2.59 1.98 2.68 2.21
NB-1 HD D: 0.77 1.13 3.39 1.19 1.69 1.92 2.52
Phen-1 HD C: 0.48 0.68 0.94 1.23 1.40 1.83 2.25
Phen-1 HD D: 0.52 0.74 1.09 1.06 1.53 1.83 2.48
C2D-1 eS HDX NTFS 1.60 1.30 1.87 2.29 2.85 3.33 3.71
Ci7-1 HD 0.41 0.63 0.94 1.14 1.32 1.67 1.80
Ci7-2 HD C: 1.42 1.91 2.24 3.39 3.76 10.01 4.81
Ci7-2 HD D: 0.88 1.43 1.99 3.55 5.32 21.33 5.91
Ci7-2 HD J: 0.81 1.67 2.27 4.04 4.49 6.10 7.85
USB2 Disks
C2D-1 USB HDX NTFS 1.90 1.71 2.12 2.39 3.11 3.41 3.83
Phen-1 USB HDX FAT 1.53 1.54 1.86 2.27 2.79 3.30 4.35
Phen-1 USB HDX NTFS 1.61 1.70 1.87 2.34 3.00 3.35 3.69
Ci7-2 USB HDX FAT 1.43 1.36 1.88 2.38 2.86 3.51 3.71
Ci7-2 USB HDX NTFS 1.67 1.62 2.01 2.58 3.03 3.52 3.86
Phen-1 HDS1 U2 NTFS 0.76 0.76 0.75 1.45 3.13 5.82 5.31
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 0.74 0.39 0.40 1.51 4.64 33.49 2.74
USB3 Disks
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 0.15 0.18 0.16 2.47 1.40 2.91 17.26
|
500 Files Write milliseconds per file and Delete seconds
SATA and PATA Disks - There were variations, but average writing times could be fairly constant at all the file sizes used on a particular configuration. Partitioned drive results were particularly of interest where, except for Netbook NB1, with XP, file writing times are considerably longer using the C: Windows partition.
USB Disks - The same drive with FAT formatting was somewhat slower than using NTFS but not as significant using the Core i7 PC. The latter also appeared to be more efficient using NTFS. USB 3 results were around 2.2 times faster with the smallest files, increasing to nearly three times at 64 KB.
Asus USB 3 Boost Option - In this case, the UASP protocol used produced severely degraded performance, with an average of greater than 20 milliseconds per file and deleting time of 6 seconds.
KB File Size
2 4 8 16 32 64 Del
SATA PATA Disks
C2D-1 HD C: 5.11 4.99 4.04 8.34 8.41 11.70 0.23
C2D-1 HD D: 2.25 0.80 0.78 1.55 1.84 2.72 0.11
NB-1 HD C: 6.48 2.02 2.24 2.46 3.54 4.74 0.49
NB-1 HD D: 4.08 2.46 2.40 2.20 2.26 2.93 0.49
Phen-1 HD C: 4.62 3.12 4.06 4.23 5.29 4.77 0.17
Phen-1 HD D: 3.95 1.55 1.51 1.51 1.65 1.83 0.18
C2D-1 eS HDX NTFS 4.25 3.01 1.31 1.49 1.57 2.01 0.13
Ci7-1 HD 3.76 1.39 1.91 2.20 4.49 4.64 0.13
Ci7-2 HD C: 7.15 1.33 2.06 3.76 1.17 0.78 0.11
Ci7-2 HD D: 2.84 0.64 0.58 0.71 0.84 0.72 0.89
Ci7-2 HD J: 3.56 0.63 0.55 0.56 0.65 0.68 0.91
USB2 Disks
C2D-1 USB HDX NTFS 4.64 3.85 3.54 3.80 4.77 5.79 0.17
Phen-1 USB HDX FAT 9.63 9.06 9.20 8.71 9.47 10.85 2.49
Phen-1 USB HDX NTFS 6.41 5.96 5.52 6.05 6.19 7.54 1.05
Ci7-2 USB HDX FAT 5.40 5.21 5.38 5.78 6.39 7.82 1.72
Ci7-2 USB HDX NTFS 5.26 4.26 3.70 3.85 4.62 5.87 0.86
Phen-1 HDS1 U2 NTFS 9.36 4.82 4.84 5.08 5.51 6.30 0.92
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 2.62 2.62 2.73 2.90 3.48 4.72 0.47
USB3 Disks
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 1.19 1.00 1.03 1.09 1.17 1.60 0.22
|
500 Files Read milliseconds per file
SATA and PATA Disks - Even with Netbook NB1, reading speeds were significantly slower using a C: Windows partition.
USB Disks - Unlike on writing, reading speeds with NTFS formatting were much slower than with FAT. USB 3 file reading times were 2 to 3 times faster than via USB 2.
Asus USB 3 Boost Option - UASP appeared to have no effect on reading speed of small files.
KB File Size
2 4 8 16 32 64
SATA PATA Disks
C2D-1 HD C: 5.68 4.58 4.39 7.26 6.30 9.81
C2D-1 HD D: 1.75 0.57 0.72 0.93 1.23 2.42
NB-1 HD C: 4.69 1.71 3.11 2.58 3.42 4.63
NB-1 HD D: 1.18 0.85 1.37 1.13 1.17 1.26
Phen-1 HD C: 5.94 5.74 7.35 6.01 6.53 7.54
Phen-1 HD D: 0.77 0.52 0.63 0.46 0.78 1.17
C2D-1 eS HDX NTFS 6.38 5.35 1.00 0.82 0.96 1.32
Ci7-1 HD 2.25 1.20 1.43 2.99 1.83 3.17
Ci7-2 HD C: 1.70 2.30 2.98 4.32 1.14 0.68
Ci7-2 HD D: 0.70 0.36 0.31 0.42 0.37 0.56
Ci7-2 HD J: 0.91 0.33 0.37 0.66 0.38 0.68
USB2 Disks
C2D-1 USB HDX NTFS 6.19 5.39 1.57 4.63 2.32 2.70
Phen-1 USB HDX FAT 1.87 1.75 1.91 2.20 2.65 3.33
Phen-1 USB HDX NTFS 5.89 5.63 3.88 2.80 2.70 3.24
Ci7-2 USB HDX FAT 1.56 0.72 0.82 0.98 1.33 2.14
Ci7-2 USB HDX NTFS 5.67 5.40 3.45 1.62 1.89 2.91
Phen-1 HDS1 U2 NTFS 1.71 1.66 1.77 2.07 2.37 3.12
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 3.20 1.15 1.13 1.38 1.84 2.89
USB3 Disks
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 0.98 0.47 0.49 0.67 0.75 0.89
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SSD and Flash Drives
| Drive and Bus MB/Second | Random Read milliseconds | Random Write milliseconds |
| 500 Files Write milliseconds | 500 Files Read milliseconds |
Drive and Bus MB/Second - Large Files
SSD Drives - The only result available did not demonstrate particularly fast speeds on writing and reading large files, but bus reading speed was exceptionally fast. As a reminder, this test rereads the same block to measure speeds from a disk’s buffer. For this particular device, the high speeds were consistent up to the maximum block size used of 1 MB. indicating a much larger cache than on disk drives.
USB 2 Sticks and SD Cards - NTFS and FAT formatting had little effect of writing and reading large files and speed wqs fairly consistent using different PCs, USB 2 speed and the age of the technology were the limiting factors.
USB 3 - The SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive appeared to produce higher maximum speeds than specified, and could be much faster than disk drive HDS1 (see above), but wide variations lead to lower average writing speeds. Reading speeds were up to eight times faster than using a USB 2 connection. The cheap USB 3 card reader performed well with the 16 GB San Disk microSDHC Extreme Pro card, at up to five times faster than via USB 2.
Max Avg Max Avg Cached Cached
Write Write Read Read Write Read Bus
SSD
Ci5-1 SSD 116 104 182 165 1445 1413 8771
USB2 Sticks
NB-1 Stp FAT 3 2 9 9 2 433 9
NB-1 Stp NTFS 3 2 9 9 2 503 9
C2D-1 Stp FAT 3 2 9 9 2 1493 10
C2D-1 Stp NTFS 3 2 9 9 1 1738 10
Phen-1 Stp FAT 3 2 9 9 2 1292 9
Phen-1 Stp NTFS 3 2 9 9 2 1113 9
Ci7-2 Stp FAT 3 3 10 9 3 2978 10
Ci7-2 Stp NTFS 3 3 10 10 3 3316 10
NB-1 Pat FAT 20 15 26 25 18 527 25
NB-1 Pat NTFS 15 11 25 24 11 515 26
C2D-1 Pat FAT 22 15 29 29 21 1944 27
C2D-1 Pat NTFS 17 12 28 26 4 1283 26
Phen-1 Pat FAT 24 15 27 26 22 1580 25
Phen-1 Pat NTFS 16 11 26 24 13 745 26
Ci7-2 Pat FAT 20 14 29 28 24 2755 28
Ci7-2 Pat NTFS 17 12 28 27 10 3306 29
Phen-1 SDex U2 FAT 19 13 31 29 16 1058 31
Phen-1 SDex U2 NTFS 20 13 31 31 28 1396 31
Ci7-2 SDex U2 FAT 30 23 36 36 29 2867 35
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 13 10 36 31 29 3350 36
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 FAT 18 13 34 34 17 1899 33
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 NTFS 13 12 35 34 19 1600 34
USB3 Sticks
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 116 72 267 263 89 3662 207
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 115 60 256 215 42 4273 216
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 FAT 18 14 98 86 18 1378 55
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 NTFS 14 12 91 80 13 1596 60
SD Cards
Phen-1 4 GB SD 6 6 10 10 6 1251 10
Phen-1 MicSD NTFS 4 3 19 18 4 914 18
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 FAT 17 17 20 20 17 2078 20
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 NTFS 15 12 20 20 12 3180 20
SD Card USB3 Reader
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 FAT 83 79 97 97 68 3912 94
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 64 39 97 96 64 4425 94
|
Random Read milliseconds
SSD Drives - Compared with other devices, the SSD random reading speed appeared to be impossible. However, the process reads 1 KB blocks out of up to 128 MB and the SSD may well have a 256 MB cache feeding a 6 Gb/s bus, making the impossible possible at less than 0.005 milliseconds per access.
USB 2 Sticks and SD Cards - Access times of the smaller files were similar to USB 2 disk drives, but continued at constant values using larger files, where disks have buffer size limitations. Typically, FAT and NTFS formatting, or the age of the device, make no difference except, perhaps, on the later SDex device, where NTFS appeared to be faster.
Using PC built-in readers, the SD cards tested were slower than USB 2 sticks and FAT formatting could be somewhat faster than NTFS.
USB 3 - The SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash stick was mainly 50% than via USB 2. The 16 GB San Disk microSDHC card provided fewer gains via the USB 3 reader.
Out of MB
2 4 8 16 32 64 128
SSD
Ci5-1 SSD 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
USB2 Sticks
NB-1 Stp FAT 0.79 0.78 0.79 0.78 0.80 0.77 0.78
NB-1 Stp NTFS 0.77 0.77 0.82 0.78 0.77 0.78 1.65
C2D-1 Stp FAT 0.54 0.65 0.59 0.58 0.59 0.58 0.59
C2D-1 Stp NTFS 0.55 0.55 0.56 0.57 0.63 0.96 0.71
Phen-1 Stp FAT 0.75 0.90 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75
Phen-1 Stp NTFS 0.75 0.76 0.77 1.98 1.66 1.20 0.96
Ci7-2 Stp FAT 0.70 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50
Ci7-2 Stp NTFS 0.54 0.54 0.88 1.73 1.39 0.94 0.72
NB-1 Pat FAT 0.79 0.78 0.81 0.78 0.77 0.79 0.80
NB-1 Pat NTFS 0.79 0.77 0.77 0.76 0.80 0.78 0.81
C2D-1 Pat FAT 0.62 0.58 0.59 0.57 0.54 0.55 0.55
C2D-1 Pat NTFS 0.65 0.84 0.79 0.64 0.59 0.58 0.61
Phen-1 Pat FAT 0.75 0.75 0.81 0.79 0.77 0.77 0.77
Phen-1 Pat NTFS 0.82 0.82 0.78 0.77 0.86 0.85 0.80
Ci7-2 Pat FAT 0.51 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.52 0.52
Ci7-2 Pat NTFS 0.50 0.57 0.58 0.54 0.52 0.53 0.54
Phen-1 SDex U2 FAT 0.77 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75
Phen-1 SDex U2 NTFS 0.76 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75
Ci7-2 SDex U2 FAT 1.34 0.45 0.48 0.49 0.50 0.50 0.51
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 0.39 0.43 0.45 0.46 0.88 0.51 0.54
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 FAT 0.82 0.96 1.01 1.04 1.03 1.03 1.02
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 NTFS 0.81 1.03 1.08 1.06 1.11 1.22 1.10
USB3 Sticks
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 0.24 0.27 0.31 0.32 0.34 0.34 0.36
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 0.28 0.31 0.33 0.35 0.34 0.35 0.33
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 FAT 0.5 0.61 0.61 0.65 0.58 0.55 0.52
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 NTFS 0.6 0.62 0.58 0.55 0.67 0.66 0.61
SD Cards
Phen-1 4 GB SD 1.09 1.10 1.10 1.12 1.12 1.13 1.13
Phen-1 MicSD NTFS 1.19 1.17 1.17 1.17 3.74 1.24 1.27
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 FAT 0.76 0.76 0.91 0.90 0.91 0.93 0.97
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 NTFS 0.94 0.99 0.97 0.98 0.97 0.98 0.97
SD Card USB3 Reader
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 FAT 0.38 0.52 0.52 0.52 0.52 0.52 0.58
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 0.53 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.62 0.64 0.61
|
Random Write milliseconds
SSD Drives - Random writing time from small files was similar to that for the USB 3 disk drive above, but much faster accessing larger files.
USB 2 Sticks and SD Cards - Again note the slow speeds on the older USB stick and SD card, with improvement on the later devices. There were extremely wide variations on the Pat drive but some suggestion that performance was better using FAT format. Then, NTFS might have had the edge on SDex.
USB 3 - Average USB 3 speed was 20% faster than using USB 2.
Out of MB
2 4 8 16 32 64 128
SSD
Ci5-1 SSD 0.13 0.13 0.12 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.13
USB2 Sticks
NB-1 Stp FAT 108 113 137 143 137 147 143
NB-1 Stp NTFS 115 120 126 144 143 149 139
C2D-1 Stp FAT 108 113 137 142 136 147 142
C2D-1 Stp NTFS 85 120 132 131 132 143 149
Phen-1 Stp FAT 108 119 131 136 137 142 143
Phen-1 Stp NTFS 102 131 132 114 144 138 149
Ci7-2 Stp FAT 113 119 119 136 142 143 143
Ci7-2 Stp NTFS 102 125 155 126 137 137 142
NB-1 Pat FAT 3.12 5.53 4.08 3.10 42.70 20.88 21.37
NB-1 Pat NTFS 10.65 8.42 8.54 5.13 51.09 68.02 108.19
C2D-1 Pat FAT 3.80 3.72 4.06 4.12 68.04 118.03 24.59
C2D-1 Pat NTFS 21.61 5.75 8.05 20.50 13.93 179.89 48.32
Phen-1 Pat FAT 4.07 4.05 3.78 4.16 29.63 106.28 53.77
Phen-1 Pat NTFS 3.67 11.04 4.01 52.32 10.26 54.17 269.09
Ci7-2 Pat FAT 3.82 4.02 4.08 4.11 57.06 89.44 50.55
Ci7-2 Pat NTFS 28.06 3.82 7.00 20.01 83.44 128.78 46.79
Phen-1 SDex U2 FAT 0.77 1.02 0.82 0.95 0.75 0.76 0.91
Phen-1 SDex U2 NTFS 0.76 0.79 1.55 1.06 1.08 0.75 0.75
Ci7-2 SDex U2 FAT 0.57 0.85 0.67 0.63 0.50 0.56 0.52
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 25.06 1.59 1.46 0.73 0.71 0.41 0.56
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 FAT 4.61 4.77 4.67 10.29 5.09 8.08 5.07
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 NTFS 4.62 4.78 7.79 5.16 5.17 9.20 5.13
USB3 Sticks
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 0.44 0.63 0.65 0.65 0.45 0.49 0.39
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 0.58 0.82 0.96 0.58 0.82 0.77 0.41
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 FAT 3.44 3.56 3.48 6.73 6.74 5.57 3.78
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 NTFS 3.69 3.67 5.41 3.46 4.20 6.23 11.15
SD Cards
Phen-1 4 GB SD 19.84 13.44 55.12 75.12 144.97 231.71 240.01
Phen-1 MicSD NTFS 2.44 2.56 11.01 3.05 2.52 2.53 2.53
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 FAT 3.04 3.03 2.24 5.99 2.14 1.99 1.97
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 NTFS 2.87 3.11 2.43 4.02 2.42 2.14 2.77
SD Card USB3 Reader
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 FAT 2.63 2.23 2.58 1.87 2.15 1.49 1.49
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 2.27 2.51 2.56 1.54 2.01 1.57 1.65
|
500 Files Write milliseconds per file and Delete seconds
SSD Drives - Average time to write files was by far the fastest, in this section, but similar to disk drive HDS1 on USB 3 above, with the smallest ones.
USB 2 Sticks and SD Cards - Again note the slow speeds on the oldest device, where FAT formatting was much slower than NTFS and file deletion time significantly longer. This was due to the unavailability of the option to optimise for performance and involved frequent updating of the File Allocation Table to enable “safe to remove”. With later devices, FAT appeared to be sometimes faster.
USB 3 - Speeds were quite variable, but the average USB 3 speed gains for FAT/NTFS were 2.1/1.8 for the USB stick and 1.8/1.6 with the SD card.
KB File Size
2 4 8 16 32 64 Del
SSD
Ci5-1 SSD 1.24 0.86 0.75 0.97 1.22 1.36 0.06
USB2 Sticks
NB-1 Stp FAT 335 244 341 362 60 75 16.4
NB-1 Stp NTFS 18 21 26 48 33 48 4.6
C2D-1 Stp FAT 329 330 334 345 51 62 14.9
C2D-1 Stp NTFS 40 38 42 57 49 60 2.9
Phen-1 Stp FAT 116 170 406 421 54 65 15.6
Phen-1 Stp NTFS 51 50 60 71 65 74 11.2
Ci7-2 Stp FAT 464 300 476 479 40 51 14.4
Ci7-2 Stp NTFS 59 42 44 60 48 59 6.2
NB-1 Pat FAT 30.18 31.14 31.08 32.93 34.51 35.91 10.96
NB-1 Pat NTFS 19.06 15.51 16.85 18.13 17.70 17.18 1.87
C2D-1 Pat FAT 25.50 25.14 25.34 26.48 27.41 27.35 9.24
C2D-1 Pat NTFS 26.87 24.62 22.19 22.43 26.64 26.21 1.43
Phen-1 Pat FAT 31.17 29.88 29.61 30.62 27.72 29.86 9.65
Phen-1 Pat NTFS 41.81 34.59 33.52 34.14 38.70 39.36 8.26
Ci7-2 Pat FAT 25.41 24.52 26.33 25.90 27.67 27.75 9.90
Ci7-2 Pat NTFS 32.39 25.85 27.55 26.66 29.64 29.57 4.60
Phen-1 SDex U2 FAT 11.80 10.68 10.75 11.75 12.15 14.54 3.25
Phen-1 SDex U2 NTFS 8.71 7.96 7.38 8.08 9.75 9.76 1.71
Ci7-2 SDex U2 FAT 4.96 4.96 5.00 5.57 6.65 6.53 1.64
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 5.40 5.83 4.79 6.38 6.40 8.52 0.87
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 FAT 28.15 27.81 28.67 32.53 32.94 34.01 11.1
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 NTFS 26.09 22.54 23.78 22.58 24.56 26.69 4.1
USB3 Sticks
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 2.70 2.56 2.37 2.72 3.97 3.31 0.60
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 3.46 1.78 4.61 3.56 7.18 9.30 0.32
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 FAT 20.58 20.36 21.03 22.55 24.33 25.89 8.5
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 NTFS 17.55 17.19 17.76 17.46 19.05 19.71 2.9
SD Cards
Phen-1 4 GB SD 52.38 44.38 46.24 41.63 38.71 45.08 11.40
Phen-1 MicSD NTFS 22.73 19.37 19.62 30.35 35.09 49.21 4.86
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 FAT 16.68 14.59 20.55 27.75 18.15 19.24 35.3
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 NTFS 22.51 20.63 19.13 20.76 18.49 23.86 8.6
SD Card USB3 Reader
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 FAT 9.70 8.34 12.35 11.75 12.70 12.08 32.4
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 12.31 11.30 15.35 13.02 14.89 13.32 7.5
|
500 Files Read milliseconds per file
SSD Drives - Reading speed of small files was not as fast as some of the SATA disk drives, nor some of the USB sticks.
USB 2 Sticks and SD Cards - FAT or NTFS format are shown to produce similar reading speeds. Later devices were somewhat faster and the CPU type/speed seemed to make a difference.
USB 3 - USB 3 provided a performance gain of 2 to 3 times over USB 2.
KB File Size
2 4 8 16 32 64
SSD
Ci5-1 SSD 3.49 3.82 4.17 4.27 4.23 3.95
USB2 Sticks
NB-1 Stp FAT 6.30 6.31 6.25 7.31 9.49 12.65
NB-1 Stp NTFS 4.79 5.02 4.21 5.62 8.55 10.57
C2D-1 Stp FAT 2.66 2.79 3.44 4.26 6.16 9.46
C2D-1 Stp NTFS 2.93 3.38 3.78 4.44 5.95 9.74
Phen-1 Stp FAT 5.20 5.51 5.73 6.60 8.49 11.87
Phen-1 Stp NTFS 6.29 5.12 6.28 6.40 8.24 12.15
Ci7-2 Stp FAT 2.55 1.92 2.63 3.98 5.00 8.50
Ci7-2 Stp NTFS 2.35 2.40 3.13 3.69 5.19 8.42
NB-1 Pat FAT 3.18 3.11 3.15 3.35 3.75 4.67
NB-1 Pat NTFS 3.52 3.72 3.81 4.06 4.98 16.59
C2D-1 Pat FAT 2.90 2.94 3.11 3.39 3.73 4.69
C2D-1 Pat NTFS 3.31 2.90 3.22 3.28 4.41 5.08
Phen-1 Pat FAT 4.26 4.17 4.30 4.54 4.89 5.90
Phen-1 Pat NTFS 4.92 5.01 5.00 5.36 5.93 7.18
Ci7-2 Pat FAT 2.76 2.83 2.94 3.56 3.63 4.47
Ci7-2 Pat NTFS 2.26 2.29 2.45 2.64 3.04 3.87
Phen-1 SDex U2 FAT 4.14 4.14 4.26 4.51 4.79 5.84
Phen-1 SDex U2 NTFS 3.94 3.94 4.06 4.03 4.38 5.16
Ci7-2 SDex U2 FAT 1.53 1.62 1.71 1.86 2.24 3.01
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 2.05 2.00 2.14 2.37 2.79 3.56
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 FAT 3.10 2.95 3.49 3.63 3.92 4.78
Ci7-2 Lex1 U2 NTFS 2.87 3.04 3.16 3.22 3.95 4.74
USB3 Sticks
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 0.72 0.79 0.63 0.70 0.70 0.82
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 0.93 1.53 0.98 1.13 1.14 1.40
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 FAT 1.47 1.43 1.51 1.82 2.02 2.57
Ci7-2 Lex1 U3 NTFS 1.36 1.41 1.57 1.64 1.90 2.52
SD Cards
Phen-1 4 GB SD 6.10 6.23 6.43 7.09 8.52 11.65
Phen-1 MicSD NTFS 5.07 5.17 5.54 5.69 6.74 7.99
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 FAT 3.27 3.40 3.57 3.93 4.64 6.09
Ci7-2 MSDE U2 NTFS 2.84 2.92 3.14 3.46 4.28 5.61
SD Card USB3 Reader
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 FAT 0.84 0.88 0.92 1.01 1.16 1.25
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 1.13 1.16 1.21 1.29 1.48 1.70
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PC Broad Comparisons
Following are summaries of some of the variations in performance of different drives, formatting and connections. Hardware used was:
Ci7-2 2014 Core i7-4820K 3.7 GHz, USB 3 5 Gb/s, SATA 3 6 Gb/s
HD C Disk Drive, Windows partition, D Second partition, 64 MB buffer, 7200 RPM
HDS1 2014 USB 3.0 Disk Drive, 5400 RPM
SSD 2012 SSD Drive from Samsung laptop, 256 MB buffer?, PCI Express bus?
SDex 2013 SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive 180/110 MB/s Read/Write
MSDE 2013 SanDisk MicroSDHC Extreme card, 95 MB/s Read, via mini USB 3 reader
|
| Drive and Bus MB/Second | Random Read milliseconds | Random Write milliseconds |
| 500 Files Write milliseconds | 500 Files Read milliseconds |
Drive and Bus MB/Second - Large Files
The PC main disk drive was slightly faster using the inner partition C: for Windows, but see later results for small files. Compared with older drives, at over 500 MB/second, the measured bus speed reflected the 6G bits/ second specification. Overall performance was better than the other devices shown.Speed of this particular SSD was not that good but the bus speed results (rereading the same block) suggested a bus faster than SATA 3 (PCIe?).
SDex USB 3 Flash Drive maximum reading and writing speeds were a little faster than the specifications, with MSDE MicroSDHC card reflecting that for reading, but both fell down on average performance on writing. The disk drive higher cached writing speeds suggested deferred write back, as opposed to USB 3 devices with settings “optimised for quick removal”. Typical USB 2 results are shown, where USB 3 was up to six times faster.
Max Avg Max Avg Cached Cached
Write Write Read Read Write Read Bus
Ci7-2 HD C: 160 155 178 143 3767 4377 518
Ci7-2 HD D: 154 141 163 162 3985 4814 526
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 127 111 125 115 205 4708 244
Ci5-1 SSD 116 104 182 165 1445 1413 8771
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 115 60 256 215 42 4273 216
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 64 39 97 96 64 4425 94
Ci7-2 Example Max USB 2 32 31 36 35 34 5253 36
|
Random Read milliseconds
As shown below, disk drives can have faster random access times than Flash drives, at smaller block sizes, where data fits in the disk’s buffer. With data larger than this, minimum average access time is likely to be that for half a revolution, or 4.17 milliseconds at 7200 RPM (HD D: 64 MB buffer with some hits) and 5.56 milliseconds at 5400 RPM (HDS1 16 MB?). USB 3 was more than twice as fast as USB 2, where data is read from the buffer.
SSD random reading time was better than 0.005 milliseconds, with all data cached and that fast bus.
Random reading was a lot slower on the older USB Flash Drives and fairly constant on later devices, over the file sizes used here. FAT and NTFS response times were similar. USB 3 speeds were only 50% faster than via USB 2, at the smaller file sizes.
Out of MB
2 4 8 16 32 64 128
Ci7-2 HD D: 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.11 0.11 1.61 3.38
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 0.38 0.39 0.46 2.94 5.53 6.97 7.82
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 0.17 0.16 0.17 2.80 6.34 7.51 8.23
Ci5-1 SSD 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Ci7-2 Old USB 2 Stick 0.54 0.54 0.88 1.73 1.39 0.94 0.72
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 0.39 0.43 0.45 0.46 0.88 0.51 0.54
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 0.24 0.27 0.31 0.32 0.34 0.34 0.36
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 0.28 0.31 0.33 0.35 0.34 0.35 0.33
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 0.53 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.62 0.64 0.61
|
Random Write milliseconds
Random writing times on disk drives were mainly slower and more variable than random reading. In this case, USB 3 was more than three times faster than USB 2, with the smaller files.
SSD random writing times were the fastest.
FAT formatting access time was faster than NTFS
Out of MB
2 4 8 16 32 64 128
Ci7-2 HD D: 0.88 1.43 1.99 3.55 5.32 21.33 5.91
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 0.74 0.39 0.40 1.51 4.64 33.49 2.74
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 0.15 0.18 0.16 2.47 1.40 2.91 17.26
Ci5-1 SSD 0.13 0.13 0.12 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.13
Ci7-2 Old USB 2 Stick 102 125 155 126 137 137 142
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 25.06 1.59 1.46 0.73 0.71 0.41 0.56
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 0.44 0.63 0.65 0.65 0.45 0.49 0.39
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 0.58 0.82 0.96 0.58 0.82 0.77 0.41
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 2.27 2.51 2.56 1.54 2.01 1.57 1.65
|
500 Files Write milliseconds per file and Delete seconds
Writing numerous small files identified significant performance differences. It frequently shows that there was a larger overhead when writing to the disk partition containing Windows. In the case of the USB disk, writing time via USB 3 was two to three times faster than USB 2.The SSD performance was not outstanding at all file sizes.
It was this area where FAT formatting was unacceptably slow, on older USB sticks but, on the latest Flash Drives, performance was close or even faster, where speed is inconsistent.
KB File Size
2 4 8 16 32 64 Del
Ci7-2 HD C: 7.15 1.33 2.06 3.76 1.17 0.78 0.11
Ci7-2 HD D: 2.84 0.64 0.58 0.71 0.84 0.72 0.89
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 2.62 2.62 2.73 2.90 3.48 4.72 0.47
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 1.19 1.00 1.03 1.09 1.17 1.60 0.22
Ci5-1 SSD 1.24 0.86 0.75 0.97 1.22 1.36 0.06
Ci7-2 Old U2 Stick FAT 464 300 476 479 40 51 14.4
Ci7-2 Old U2 Stick NTFS 59 42 44 60 48 59 6.2
Ci7-2 SDex U2 FAT 4.96 4.96 5.00 5.57 6.65 6.53 1.64
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 5.40 5.83 4.79 6.38 6.40 8.52 0.87
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 2.70 2.56 2.37 2.72 3.97 3.31 0.60
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 3.46 1.78 4.61 3.56 7.18 9.30 0.32
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 12.31 11.30 15.35 13.02 14.89 13.32 7.50
|
500 Files Read milliseconds per file
The disk drive on Ci7-2 was again much slower reading small files from the Windows partition. As on writing, the USB disk was two to three times faster via a USB 3 port.
For some reason, the SSD was slow on this section of tests.
FAT formatting, via USB 3, appeared to be faster than using NTFS, where USB 3 was up to six times faster than USB 2.
KB File Size
2 4 8 16 32 64
Ci7-2 HD C: 1.70 2.30 2.98 4.32 1.14 0.68
Ci7-2 HD D: 0.70 0.36 0.31 0.42 0.37 0.56
Ci7-2 HDS1 U2 NTFS 3.20 1.15 1.13 1.38 1.84 2.89
Ci7-2 HDS1 U3 NTFS 0.98 0.47 0.49 0.67 0.75 0.89
Ci5-1 SSD 3.49 3.82 4.17 4.27 4.23 3.95
Ci7-2 Old U2 Stick FAT 2.55 1.92 2.63 3.98 5.00 8.50
Ci7-2 Old U2 Stick NTFS 2.35 2.40 3.13 3.69 5.19 8.42
Ci7-2 SDex U2 FAT 1.53 1.62 1.71 1.86 2.24 3.01
Ci7-2 SDex U2 NTFS 2.05 2.00 2.14 2.37 2.79 3.56
Ci7-2 SDex U3 FAT 0.72 0.79 0.63 0.70 0.70 0.82
Ci7-2 SDex U3 NTFS 0.93 1.53 0.98 1.13 1.14 1.40
Ci7-2 MSDE U3 NTFS 1.13 1.16 1.21 1.29 1.48 1.70
|
LAN and Wireless
DriveSpeed32.exe can be run from a remote directory by clicking on the EXE file. The operations are carried out from the first system shown below, involving four different versions of Windows (see next page). Inconsistent Gigabit LAN speeds were observed. These Windows results are included with many more in
Linux Disk, USB and LAN Benchmarks.
Other PC LAN and WiFi results are in
CDDVDSpd Benchmark.
|
PC Systems and Drives
C2D-1 Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz, Asus P5B Intel 965 chipset, 4 GB DDR2 800
MHz, GeForce 8600 GT, Seagate ST3400633AS SATA2 Disk 400 GB,
64 Bit Vista, 2007
Phen-1 Phenom II 3000 MHz, Asus M4A785TD-V, 8 GB DCDDR3 RAM, WD 5400
RPM Green SATA disk, GeForce GTS 250, 64-Bit Windows 7, 2009
NB-1 Samsung N140 Netbook, 1.6 GHz Atom, 1 GB 533 MHz DDR2 RAM,
Intel 945GSE chipset/Graphics, Windows XP, 2009
Ci5-1 Samsung Series 9 13.3-Inch Laptop, 1.6 GHz Core i5-2467M CPU,
8 GB DDR3, Intel HD 3000 graphics, 128 GB SSD, Windows 7, 2012
Ci7-1 Core i7-3930K 3.2 GHz, GeForce GTX 680, 32 GB RAM, Windows 7
2012
Ci7-2 Core i7-4820K 3.7 GHz, Asus P9X79 LE, 4 Channel 32 GB 800 MHz
DDR3 RAM, GeForce GTX 650, 1 TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1003FZEX
SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB cache, Windows 8.1, 2014
SSD From Samsung Series 9 laptop, 256 MB buffer?, 6 Gb/s bus, 2012
HDX Seagate ST3320613AS, external enclosure for eSATA and USB 2.0
7200 RPM, 2009
HDS1 Seagate Expansion SRD00F1, 1TB USB 3.0, 5400 RPM, 2014
Gb LAN 1 Gbps LAN
SDEx 32 GB SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive, 180 MB/s read
110 MB/s write, 2013
Lex1 8 GB Lexar S23 USB 3.0 Flash Drive, 100 MB/s read,
15 MB/s write, (low cost), 2014
Pat 8 GB Patriot Rage XT, with quad channels for fast writing
speeds of up to 25 MB/second, USB 2, FAT and NTFS, 2012
Stp 4 GB old Staples memory stick, USB 2, FAT and NTFS, 2010
MicSD 8 GB San Disk microSDHC card, USB 2, FAT and NTFS, 2012
MSDE 16 GB San Disk microSDHC Extreme Pro, USB 2, USB 3, FAT
and NTFS, up to 95 MB/second read, 2013
4 GB SD Maxell SD card, USB 2, FAT, 2011
Wireless NB-1 disk, 54 Mbps wireless from Phen-1, 2011
U2 = USB 2, U3 = USB 3
|
Android
Android Versions are available, with the latest DriveSpd apk app, directly downloadable from the first four of the following. Each of these provides recompilations with added options or from a later compiler. The first covers only 32 bit ARM CPUs. The others automatically use the latest options of 32 bit or 64 bit and ARM or Intel CPUs. The apps have a save button where the latest versions of Android provide options for the destination of results in a text log file.
- 2016 android benchmarks32.htm
- 2016 android native ARM-Intel benchmarks.htm
- 2018 android benchmarks.htm
- 2020 Android 9 benchmarks.htm
- 2021 Android 10 and 11 Benchmarks and ARM bigLITTLE Architecture Issues.htm
The benchmark can be used to at least demonstrate accessing the optional SD card and USB drives, via the file path option provided, but this can be difficult to find. Numerous results are included in the above first report, but some may be cached. The first example below shows the general layout and results for tests on an SD card. Note that the much higher speeds for cached tests confirms that data for normal writing and reading is not cached.
Second results below demonstrate cached main drive result from a Nexus 7, voted (by some?) as “Best Android tablet of 2013”. This is followed by a selection of examples I have for read only performance over the years, the first one being for the Nexus 7. The first of the three measurement can be slow, probably due to arranging initial memory structure, following power on.
SD Card - File Path /storage/sdcard1/, not cached
Android DriveSpeed2 Benchmark 1.0 28-Aug-2015 12.56
MBytes/Second
MB Write1 Write2 Write3 Read1 Read2 Read3
8 3.7 3.7 3.6 20.3 20.6 20.4
16 2.6 3.7 3.7 20.5 20.5 20.5
Cached
8 52.4 107.8 13.2 228.8 226.3 226.7
Random Write Read
From MB 4 8 16 4 8 16
msecs 4.65 4.91 18.23 0.01 0.01 0.66
200 Files Write Read Delete
File KB 4 8 16 4 8 16 secs
MB/sec 0.07 0.18 0.49 2.16 3.79 6.51
msecs 59.14 44.59 33.61 1.90 2.16 2.52 2.099
Nexus 7 Main Drive, Cached
DriveSpeed Benchmark 17-Oct-2012 20.24
MBytes/Second
MB Write1 Write2 Write3 Read1 Read2 Read3
8 207.6 192.7 184.9 368.0 299.0 312.5
16 176.2 155.5 14.0 337.9 413.1 424.9
Cached
8 129.7 167.9 190.8 328.3 264.5 292.5
Random Write Read
From MB 4 8 16 4 8 16
msecs 11.53 40.40 2.05 0.00 0.00 0.00
200 Files Write Read Delete
File KB 4 8 16 4 8 16 secs
MB/sec 50.79 30.94 47.25 187.72 130.59 168.88
msecs 0.08 0.26 0.35 0.02 0.06 0.10 0.030
No delete
Main Drives Read Only MBytes/Second
Year Read1 Read2 Read3
2012 49.9 49.0 49.3 Nexus 7
2013 53.7 53.5 53.9
2015 102.9 104.0 103.6
2015 127.7 145.7 139.9
2015 155.7 128.6 156.2
2018 60.8 239.0 241.3
2020 182.4 173.3 207.0
2021 273.7 278.9 253.6 Android 10
2021 136.7 380.5 450.4 Android 11
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Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi Versions The same format as the Android version was used for Raspberry Pi DriveSpeed and LanSpeed benchmarks. Numerous results are included in the following reports covering the main SD drive and other connections via USB 2 and 3, also those form LAN and WiFi network connections. The reports also include links to TAR compressed files containing benchmarks and source code files.
- 2014 Raspberry Pi Stress Tests.htm
- 2014 Raspberry Pi OpenElec Benchmarks.htm.
- 2016 Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 Stress Tests.htm.
- 2017 Raspberry Pi, Pi 2 and Pi 3 Benchmarks
- 2018 Raspberry Pi 3B+ 32 bit and 64 bit Benchmarks and stress tests.htm
- 2019 Raspberry Pi 4B 32 Bit Benchmarks.htm
- 2019 Raspberry Pi 4B 64 Bit Benchmarks and Stress Tests.htm
- 2019 Raspberry Pi 4 CPU MHz Throttling Performance Effects.htm
- 2020 Benchmarking Raspberry Pi 4 Running From Power Over Ethernet.htm
- 2020 Raspberry Pi 64 Bit OS and 8 GB Pi 4B Benchmarks.htm
- 2020 Raspberry Pi 400 PC Benchmarks and Stress Tests.htm
- 2021 Raspberry Pi Pico, Pi 4 and Pi 400 Python and C Basic Beginners Bit Banging Benchmarks.htm
The main drive speed depends on the vintage of the SD card, shown to improve, on handling large files, over the years from 2012. Later USB 3 and USB booting introduced faster speeds, including that from disk drives. The results demonstrate slow reading performance using FAT formatting, compared with Ext4.
The LanSpeed benchmark can demonstrate reasonable performance expectations using Gigabit or 100 Mbps Ethernet connections and 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz WiFi, also on the transfer of larger file sizes using the 64 bit Operating System. On transferring small files, packet handling overheads reduce benefits of faster data transfer speed.
DriveSpeed Large Files Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
MB File 1 File 2 File 3 File 1 File 2 File 3
16 GB SD 16 14.45 14.07 19.45 22.66 22.78 22.76
32 GB SD 16 17.38 13.75 12.28 42.97 43.21 43.19
32 GB USB 3 CR 16 20.62 18.21 21.03 72.56 75.70 75.32
64 GB SD 16 74.42 77.55 76.80 129.86 130.65 129.75
HD Ext4 16 55.80 81.05 52.98 134.06 142.09 143.91
HD EXt4 2000 149.83 148.52 146.76 151.64 151.99 150.15
HD FAT 2000 68.10 66.83 67.67 148.63 148.69 149.25
USB3 Drive FAT 16 49.41 50.85 50.85 236.51 241.09 221.83
Random Read msecs Write msecs
From MB 4 8 16 4 8 16
16 GB SD 0.711 0.709 0.757 3.34 2.97 6.67
32 GB SD 0.326 0.343 0.326 1.52 1.54 1.51
32 GB USB 3 CR 0.627 0.498 0.489 5.77 2.42 1.43
64 GB SD 0.671 0.675 0.671 2.14 2.20 2.18
HD Ext4 1.087 0.391 0.286 0.68 0.63 0.68
HD FAT 0.573 0.515 0.368 0.63 0.58 0.65
USB3 Drive FAT 0.834 0.833 0.904 4.01 4.02 4.00
200 Files Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
File KB 4 8 16 4 8 16
16 GB SD 1.49 2.54 3.72 5.35 8.65 11.91
32 GB SD 2.61 6.47 7.37 10.93 16.63 23.21
32 GB USB 3 CR 3.44 5.70 6.21 6.83 11.52 21.31
64 GB SD 1.95 2.55 4.58 7.33 11.85 21.22
HD Ext4 9.90 15.22 14.05 13.42 7.95 19.51
HD FAT 0.04 0.07 0.15 0.37 0.73 1.46
USB3 Drive FAT 0.03 0.07 0.14 4.77 9.79 18.02
LanSpeed Large Files Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
MB File 1 File 2 File 3 File 1 File 2 File 3
LAN 1 Gbps 16 80.79 93.59 94.61 103.99 104.34 104.57
LAN 1 Gbps 16384 90.64 89.47 91.10 116.58 117.24 117.13
LAN 100 Mbps 16 11.31 11.32 11.32 11.65 10.80 11.65
WiFi 2.4 GHz 16 5.62 5.64 5.69 5.17 5.02 5.18
WiFi 5 GHz 16 10.96 7.30 11.84 8.40 6.24 7.94
200 Files Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
File KB 4 8 16 4 8 16
LAN 1 Gbps 2.99 3.35 3.43 2.98 3.29 3.33
LAN 100 Mbps 1.05 1.90 3.22 1.76 3.09 4.70
WiFi 2.4 GHz 0.24 0.52 0.95 0.34 0.60 1.14
WiFi 5 GHz 0.38 0.73 1.12 0.39 0.73 0.98
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Historic Performance Variations
Disk Drive Reading Speeds Over 26 Years
Following is a graph showing typical maximum reading speed trends of normal PC disk drives over 26 years. Results are mainly from those for DiskGraf and DriveSpeed, up to 2014, with the last ones from published technical reports. The suggested trend equates to increases of 7.2 MB per second per year, to 188 MB/sec, an increase of around 160 times. The first disk drive had a capacity of 284 MB. The most recent ones that I bought were 1 TB, 3521 times greater and 4 TB ones considered affordable.
Disk Revolution Speeds - Over this period, most regular disk rotation speed increased from 3600 to 7200 RPM, the improvement in data transfer speeds of large files produced with more data per track and capacity by that and an increase in the number of tracks.
Disk Random Access - Over the same period and disk drives, random reading speed of a tiny block, from small files, improved from around 20 milliseconds to less than 0.1, influenced by the inclusion of a built-in buffer and faster hardware. Then later, larger buffers provided fast access for increasing file sizes. However, performance improvement handling files, greater than the buffer’s capacity, could be limited by RPM changes. In turn, data caches in main RAM cold regain improvement trends.
Disk Small File Performance - Referring to small file writing and reading on my systems, The average time to write or read files is often shown to be constant, resulting in MB/second speeds being proportional to file size, the time being dominated by overheads. I often have partitioned drive C: for Windows and D: for personal use. Then C: drives were much slower on both writing and reading. This is clear in these sample earlier 1994 to 2014 results, where long term variations are provided. For example, at 8 KB file sizes, 20 year Write/Read performance gains were 78/33 times for drive D: or 15/6 times for drive C:.
Small Files All Drives - This report has numerous results, indicating performance differences where further information is required to provide an explanation. The first is FAT formatting, where cluster sizes increase between 0.5 and 64 KB for drive capacity between 8 MB and 4GB, governing how much data is transmitted for a smaller file. Then we have the effects of Anti-Virus software, settings to Optimise for Performance or Quick Removal, System Software imposed activities such as Lazy Flushing or forced caching in main memory and CPU speed.
Flash Drives - Following shows the range of performance variations on USB Flash Drives, that I have encountered, over 10 years. That long random writing time (see here) is difficult to explain. This shows similar issues using SD cards.
Large MB/sec Small msecs Random msecs Year Size Write Read Write Read Write Read 2004 20 MB 0.45 1.5 114 31 N/A N/A 2010 4 GB 2.49 9.1 6.0 1.4 120 0.6 2014 16 GB 100 240 2.8 0.6 0.7 0.6
Android Drives
The earlier details reported issues that prevented my standard DriveSpeed benchmark from working properly on later Android based devices, but enabled read only tests after powering off then on. The table of large file reading speeds, of available phones and tablets, indicates maximum of 49.9 MB/second in 2012, rising to 450 MB/second in 2021.Raspberry Pi Drives
A range of results are provided above, with full details being in the links to published reports, covering all Raspberry Pi computers from the original in 2012 to the Pi 400 in 2020 and Pico in 2021. Most of this time, main drive performance depended on the choice of micro SD card and, probably, increasing bus speed. Over this period USB 2 was upgraded to USB 3, Ethernet from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps and WiFi from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz. Then, USB booting enabled the use of faster, higher capacity main drives.
Input/Output Stress Tests
The later default versions write four files, using 164 blocks of 64 KB (10.25 MB), with each block containing a unique data pattern (See below). The files are then read for two minutes, on a sort of random sequence, with data and file ID checked for correct values. Finally, each of the 164 blocks are read repetitively from one file for one second at maximum bus speed from a disk’s buffer or directly from SSDs. In order to maintain fast data transfer, values are checked every 20 passes. Input parameters are provided to increase files sizes, reading time minutes and block reading time seconds.
The benchmarks, instructions, example results and download links are available in the following reports. Versions for DOS and Windows in Stress Testing Programs.htm and Linux in Linux Burn-In Apps, with those for Raspberry Pi ni the stress testing reports above.
A summary of displayed and logged results is provided below, exercising a 2021 laptop with a 256 GB SSD, initially for a short test on power, then one with reading time of an hour on battery (when lower power saving settings were turned off). This is followed by comparisons indicating that battery performance was nearly as good as those on power, with battery drain around 25% from fully charged.
drivestress64 - laptop, Core i5-1135G7, 256GB SSD
Linux Storage Stress Test 64-Bit Version 1.1, Sun Apr 17 11:01:28 2022
File size 10.25 MB x 4 files, minimum reading time 2 minutes
File 1 10.25 MB written in 0.14 seconds
File 2 10.25 MB written in 0.14 seconds
File 3 10.25 MB written in 0.11 seconds
File 4 10.25 MB written in 0.11 seconds
Start Reading Sun Apr 17 11:01:28 2022
Read passes 65 x 4 Files x 10.25 MB in 0.25 minutes
Read passes 133 x 4 Files x 10.25 MB in 0.50 minutes
To
Read passes 478 x 4 Files x 10.25 MB in 1.75 minutes
Read passes 551 x 4 Files x 10.25 MB in 2.00 minutes
Start Repeat Read Sun Apr 17 11:03:28 2022
Passes in 1 second(s) for each of 164 blocks of 64KB:
3600 3600 3600 3580 3600 3620 3740 4320 4280 4300 4300
3880 4280 3940 4220 4220 4220 3620 3420 3580 3360 3560
3360 3560 3600 3420 3600 3600 3600 3600 3600 3400 3600
To
3560 3560 3580 3580 3580 3600 3580 3600 3560 3400 3440
1560 1740 2880 3600 3600 3360 3600 3420 3500 2580 2200
3140 2780 3580 3600 3580 3420 3580 3580 3560 3580
574440 read passes of 64KB blocks in 2.74 minutes
No errors found during reading tests
End of test Sun Apr 17 11:06:13 2022
#############################################################################
Comparison
Power
Read passes 551 x 4 Files x 10.25 MB in 2.00 minutes = 188 MB/second
Block 574440 read passes of 64KB blocks in 2.74 minutes = 218 MB/second
Battery
Read passes 15813 x 4 Files x 10.25 MB in 60.00 minutes = 180 MB/second
Block 532300 read passes of 64KB blocks in 2.74 minutes = 202 MB/second
#############################################################################
File Reading Sequence First 16
No. File No. File No. File No. File
1 0 1 2 3 5 0 2 1 3 9 0 3 1 2 13 0 1 2 3
2 1 2 3 0 6 1 3 2 0 10 1 0 3 2 14 1 2 3 0
3 2 3 0 1 7 2 0 1 3 11 2 1 0 3 15 2 3 0 1
4 3 0 2 1 8 3 1 2 0 12 3 2 1 0 16 3 0 2 1
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Input/Output Stress Test Data Patterns
Number Pattern Or Hex Number Pattern Or Hex
1 0 0 2 1 1
3 2 2 4 4 4
5 8 8 6 16 10
7 32 20 8 64 40
9 128 80 10 256 100
11 512 200 12 1024 400
13 2048 800 14 4096 1000
15 8192 2000 16 16384 4000
17 32768 8000 18 65536 10000
19 131072 20000 20 262144 40000
21 524288 80000 22 1048576 100000
23 2097152 200000 24 4194304 400000
25 8388608 800000 26 16777216 1000000
27 33554432 2000000 28 67108864 4000000
29 134217728 8000000 30 268435456 10000000
31 536870912 20000000 32 1073741824 40000000
33 1 1 34 5 5
35 21 15 36 85 55
37 341 155 38 1365 555
39 5461 1555 40 21845 5555
41 87381 15555 42 349525 55555
43 1398101 155555 44 5592405 555555
45 22369621 1555555 46 89478485 5555555
47 357913941 15555555 48 1431655765 55555555
49 3 3 50 51 33
51 819 333 52 13107 3333
53 209715 33333 54 3355443 333333
55 53687091 3333333 56 858993459 33333333
57 7 7 58 455 1C7
59 29127 71C7 60 1864135 1C71C7
61 119304647 71C71C7 62 15 F
63 3855 F0F 64 986895 F0F0F
65 252645135 F0F0F0F 66 31 1F
67 31775 7C1F 68 32537631 1F07C1F
69 63 3F 70 258111 3F03F
71 127 7F 72 2080895 1FC07F
73 255 FF 74 16711935 FF00FF
75 511 1FF 76 1023 3FF
77 2047 7FF 78 4095 FFF
79 8191 1FFF 80 16383 3FFF
81 32767 7FFF 82 65535 FFFF
83 -1 FFFFFFFF 84 -2 FFFFFFFE
85 -3 FFFFFFFD 86 -5 FFFFFFFB
87 -9 FFFFFFF7 88 -17 FFFFFFEF
89 -33 FFFFFFDF 90 -65 FFFFFFBF
91 -129 FFFFFF7F 92 -257 FFFFFEFF
93 -513 FFFFFDFF 94 -1025 FFFFFBFF
95 -2049 FFFFF7FF 96 -4097 FFFFEFFF
97 -8193 FFFFDFFF 98 -16385 FFFFBFFF
99 -32769 FFFF7FFF 100 -65537 FFFEFFFF
101 -131073 FFFDFFFF 102 -262145 FFFBFFFF
103 -524289 FFF7FFFF 104 -1048577 FFEFFFFF
105 -2097153 FFDFFFFF 106 -4194305 FFBFFFFF
107 -8388609 FF7FFFFF 108 -16777217 FEFFFFFF
109 -33554433 FDFFFFFF 110 -67108865 FBFFFFFF
111 -134217729 F7FFFFFF 112 -268435457 EFFFFFFF
113 -536870913 DFFFFFFF 114 -1073741825 BFFFFFFF
115 -2 FFFFFFFE 116 -6 FFFFFFFA
117 -22 FFFFFFEA 118 -86 FFFFFFAA
119 -342 FFFFFEAA 120 -1366 FFFFFAAA
121 -5462 FFFFEAAA 122 -21846 FFFFAAAA
123 -87382 FFFEAAAA 124 -349526 FFFAAAAA
125 -1398102 FFEAAAAA 126 -5592406 FFAAAAAA
127 -22369622 FEAAAAAA 128 -89478486 FAAAAAAA
129 -357913942 EAAAAAAA 130 -1431655766 AAAAAAAA
131 -4 FFFFFFFC 132 -52 FFFFFFCC
133 -820 FFFFFCCC 134 -13108 FFFFCCCC
135 -209716 FFFCCCCC 136 -3355444 FFCCCCCC
137 -53687092 FCCCCCCC 138 -858993460 CCCCCCCC
139 -8 FFFFFFF8 140 -456 FFFFFE38
141 -29128 FFFF8E38 142 -1864136 FFE38E38
143 -119304648 F8E38E38 144 -16 FFFFFFF0
145 -3856 FFFFF0F0 146 -986896 FFF0F0F0
147 -252645136 F0F0F0F0 148 -32 FFFFFFE0
149 -31776 FFFF83E0 150 -32537632 FE0F83E0
151 -64 FFFFFFC0 152 -258112 FFFC0FC0
153 -128 FFFFFF80 154 -2080896 FFE03F80
155 -256 FFFFFF00 156 -16711936 FF00FF00
157 -512 FFFFFE00 158 -1024 FFFFFC00
159 -2048 FFFFF800 160 -4096 FFFFF000
161 -8192 FFFFE000 162 -16384 FFFFC000
163 -32768 FFFF8000 164 -65536 FFFF0000
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