Performance Test: DVD vs 5400rpm vs 7200rpm

[jhonnyp0lak]

When i started off my HDD upgrade venture, which i must say has been very very interesting (i've misflashed a WD BEKT drive, corrupted my original fujitsu 20gb drive, then wrote a tutorial on how to fix it) I couldn't decide whether its better to shell out a few bucks extra for a 7200 rpm drive or just buy a stock standard 5400 rpm drive. So i bought the more expensive one, thinking worst case scenario, in the future I'll use it in a HTPC or laptop

But here are some test figures, for those contemplating between a 7200 rpm disk and 5400 rpm disk.

Test Subjects:
- DVD ROM: Samsung MS25
- Fujitsu MHV2020BH - 20GB - 5400 RPM - 8MB CACHE (Original 20GB drive)
- WD 1600BEKT - 160GB - 7200 RPM - 16MB CACHE

Game	DVD ----	Fujitsu --	WD
Rockband2 - Song Load - Nine in the afternoon ---	15.99	11.26	10.80
GTA 4 - Game Startup - Story Complete ----------	82.22	64.50	50.32
GTA 4 - L&D - Game Startup - Save Game --------	97.37	83.28	67.55
Halo 3 - Campaign Startup -----------------------	81.47	141.89	16.74

* Test times are in seconds
* Rockband2 test was conducted by timing the amount of time the game loads between accepting the difficulty setting to when the intro animations appear. The song that was loaded was "Nine in the Afternoon" (standard RB2 setlist song)
* GTA4 tests were conducted by selecting "Play Game" from the dashboard and timing how long it takes for the game to load and automatically load a save game to a playable state
* Halo 3 test was conducted by timing how long it takes from pressing Start Campaign in the main menu, until the intro music starts

[B1N4RY]

WD Hard drives is in the lead  (As always...)

Thanks for the benchmark

[jz_5_3]

is 141.89 a typo? might be 41.80?

[neonpolaris]

These results may be misleading.  The difference in loading times between the drives may not be a result of the higher rotational speed as much as the increased areal density of the WD drive.  At least, there isn't an easy way to determine how much without comparing it to a drive of the same capacity.

That being said, I do appreciate the timings you have posted.

[jhonnyp0lak]

The result for Halo 3 for Fujitsu is not a typo. I've tested it 3 times, cleared system cache and every time i'd get a result close to 141 seconds. I have no idea why that is, but Halo 3 on the 20gb drive is extremely slow.

The only possible explnanation i could think of is maybe since it was installed on the drive and i think i had about 1 gb space left on it and since Halo 3 caches to HDD, that may have caused an issue. Halo would have been caching to such a small space and constantly running out of it.

Also the hdd cache may have something to do with it too. 8MB vs 16MB.

[neonpolaris]

Halo 3 did warn about how installing to HD may decrease performance.

[B1N4RY]

I would really like to know why though

[HiTec]

I remember that the "problem" is that Halo 3 copies maps to utility partition on HDD. And cause Halo 3 doesnt know where it runs from, it will copy maps to utility partition even the whole game is allready installed to HDD. And when HDD tries to read and write the data same time (when loading game) the result is slower loading times.

[crimpshrine]

Game	DVD ----	Fujitsu --	WD
Rockband2 - Song Load - Nine in the afternoon ---	15.99	11.26	10.80
GTA 4 - Game Startup - Story Complete ----------	82.22	64.50	50.32
GTA 4 - L&D - Game Startup - Save Game --------	97.37	83.28	67.55
Halo 3 - Campaign Startup -----------------------	81.47	141.89	16.74

* Test times are in seconds
* Rockband2 test was conducted by timing the amount of time the game loads between accepting the difficulty setting to when the intro animations appear. The song that was loaded was "Nine in the Afternoon" (standard RB2 setlist song)
* GTA4 tests were conducted by selecting "Play Game" from the dashboard and timing how long it takes for the game to load and automatically load a save game to a playable state
* Halo 3 test was conducted by timing how long it takes from pressing Start Campaign in the main menu, until the intro music starts

I know this is an old thread and there are multiple variables that factor into ultimate hard drive speed take it for what its worth.

I ran 2 of the tests against a Hitachi 500 Gig 7200 RPM 2.5" drive the Travelstar HD20500 IDK/7K  Each game was loaded to the HD using NXE and check was removed with NXE2GOD

GTA 4 - L&D - Game Startup - Save Game --------

97.37

83.28

67.55

Hitachi took 50 seconds from play game at dash to save game being loaded.

Halo 3 - Campaign Startup -----------------------

81.47

141.89

16.74

Hitachi took 13 seconds till intro music started performed the same way as stated above.

[littlestevie360]

one of the biggest things to look at is caching, doubling 8MB to 16MB cache on the HDD will make a big difference as well

[crimpshrine]

The only other drive that is comparable that would fit by default that I can see is the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420ASG, curious how that fares with the same tests. It also has 16 meg of cache and should have the same density.

Or another nice one to see if there is any difference would be the Samsung or WD 640 GB 5400 RPM drives, those only have 8 meg of cache though..

[HB]

one of the biggest things to look at is caching, doubling 8MB to 16MB cache on the HDD will make a big difference as well

Cache size won't have much of an impact on read times... only on write times.

For Halo 3, as someone pointed out above, the issue is that the game tries to be smart and caches some of its data in a temporary location on the HD (it was written before NXE's Install To Drive option was available).  But as most PC users already know, copying data from one location on a hard-drive to another location on the same hard-drive is going to be much slower than copying from one drive to another, because you only get half the bandwidth (half to read it, and then half to write it), and because you have to move the drive heads back and forth between the source location and the destination location.  Then once you have the files cached, it takes longer to read them back simultaneously from the two locations because again, you have to move the drive heads back and forth between the installed location and the cached location.

Therefore, Halo 3 operates faster when run off of the DVD because it can read/write from/to both locations simultaneously (DVD and HD) without seek-time penalties.

[littlestevie360]

one of the biggest things to look at is caching, doubling 8MB to 16MB cache on the HDD will make a big difference as well

Therefore, Halo 3 operates faster when run off of the DVD because it can read/write from/to both locations simultaneously (DVD and HD) without seek-time penalties.

and this is my point on caching, in regards to say halo 3, off my 750GB drive with 32MB cache its much faster than off my 500GB drive with 16MB cache. because the console employs caching if a HDD is present these sorts of losses will be seen across most games, halo3 just shows it more than most because it caches more