Western Digital WD2500YD: Enterprise on the Desktop
by Gary Key on June 24, 2006 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
iPEAK File Transfer Tests
Our iPEAK based File Transfer benchmarks indicate how well a drive performs in a strictly read or write operation with a limited number of files (29) but a large amount of data (7.55GB). The test is designed to ensure continual write or read operations across a large section of the drive that requires constant head and actuator movements along with caching large amounts of data.
The read performance of the WD2500YD is impressive in these benchmarks while the write performance continues to be lackluster when compared to the other drives. The performance of WD RE2 500GB drive was fantastic in the read section and then fell in behind the WD Raptor and Seagate 7200.10 in the write performance benchmark; however, it continues to lead the RE2 400GB drive in both benchmarks.
The Seagate 7200.10 and 7200.9 read performance is dismal compared to the WD drives, but their write performance is very good. This is interesting as their read performance in the antivirus test was excellent. After further examination of the trace files we noticed the read requests in the antivirus test consisted of mostly small blocks sizes in irregular patterns compared to very large block sizes in a continual pattern in the file transfer test. Apparently, the Seagate drives handle small transfers better than sustained larger transfers, so the large files used here hampered their performance.
iPEAK Video/Audio Tests
The iPEAK based Video/Audio benchmarks are designed around media encoding and simulating HTPC activities. These are basic benchmarks at this time as this section will be expanded greatly with some new tools that we have developed that will be introduced in our 500GB roundup. Our change to a dual core processor will assist us in maintaining a balance between the CPU and Storage systems during the trace file creation and benchmarking processes. These benchmarks are CPU intensive in nature but also require a balanced storage system with the ability to handle read and write requests simultaneously in a very efficient manner.
The AnyDVD benchmark is heavily weighted to write requests with the results showing a common pattern with the WD Raptor finishing first and the WD2500YD trails behind the balance of the field. The WD RE2 400GB drive finishes slightly ahead of the RE2 500GB and 18% ahead of the RE 250GB drive. The Seagate 750GB 7200.10 posts very good scores in this area and should since its capacity lends itself well to this process.
The NeroRecode 2 benchmark is weighted to streaming read requests but is balanced by continuous write operations. This benchmark is one of the most demanding ones in our test suite with the disk being active the entire trace file with several 100% utilization peaks. The Seagate 7200.10 posts the best scores here with a victory over the Raptor and finishes ahead of the other WD drives. The WD2500YD places ahead of the RE2 400GB but does not offer the same strong read performance we noticed in the file transfer tests where a limited number of like file sizes are utilized.
Our video and audio encoding benchmarks that stream a continuous data feed clearly favor the high and sustainable transfer rates of the Raptor. While falling behind the RE2 drives in these two benchmarks, the WD2500YD has no trouble finishing ahead of the Seagate 7200.9 500GB drive. The Seagate 7200.10 and WD5000YS both offer very balanced performance in the larger drive capacities.
Our iPEAK based File Transfer benchmarks indicate how well a drive performs in a strictly read or write operation with a limited number of files (29) but a large amount of data (7.55GB). The test is designed to ensure continual write or read operations across a large section of the drive that requires constant head and actuator movements along with caching large amounts of data.
The read performance of the WD2500YD is impressive in these benchmarks while the write performance continues to be lackluster when compared to the other drives. The performance of WD RE2 500GB drive was fantastic in the read section and then fell in behind the WD Raptor and Seagate 7200.10 in the write performance benchmark; however, it continues to lead the RE2 400GB drive in both benchmarks.
The Seagate 7200.10 and 7200.9 read performance is dismal compared to the WD drives, but their write performance is very good. This is interesting as their read performance in the antivirus test was excellent. After further examination of the trace files we noticed the read requests in the antivirus test consisted of mostly small blocks sizes in irregular patterns compared to very large block sizes in a continual pattern in the file transfer test. Apparently, the Seagate drives handle small transfers better than sustained larger transfers, so the large files used here hampered their performance.
iPEAK Video/Audio Tests
The iPEAK based Video/Audio benchmarks are designed around media encoding and simulating HTPC activities. These are basic benchmarks at this time as this section will be expanded greatly with some new tools that we have developed that will be introduced in our 500GB roundup. Our change to a dual core processor will assist us in maintaining a balance between the CPU and Storage systems during the trace file creation and benchmarking processes. These benchmarks are CPU intensive in nature but also require a balanced storage system with the ability to handle read and write requests simultaneously in a very efficient manner.
The AnyDVD benchmark is heavily weighted to write requests with the results showing a common pattern with the WD Raptor finishing first and the WD2500YD trails behind the balance of the field. The WD RE2 400GB drive finishes slightly ahead of the RE2 500GB and 18% ahead of the RE 250GB drive. The Seagate 750GB 7200.10 posts very good scores in this area and should since its capacity lends itself well to this process.
The NeroRecode 2 benchmark is weighted to streaming read requests but is balanced by continuous write operations. This benchmark is one of the most demanding ones in our test suite with the disk being active the entire trace file with several 100% utilization peaks. The Seagate 7200.10 posts the best scores here with a victory over the Raptor and finishes ahead of the other WD drives. The WD2500YD places ahead of the RE2 400GB but does not offer the same strong read performance we noticed in the file transfer tests where a limited number of like file sizes are utilized.
Our video and audio encoding benchmarks that stream a continuous data feed clearly favor the high and sustainable transfer rates of the Raptor. While falling behind the RE2 drives in these two benchmarks, the WD2500YD has no trouble finishing ahead of the Seagate 7200.9 500GB drive. The Seagate 7200.10 and WD5000YS both offer very balanced performance in the larger drive capacities.
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11 Comments
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driveguy - Monday, June 26, 2006 - link
I do not understand why the YD family was reviewed so late in it's life.The YS familily has been introduced from 160-500GB on a common platform.
It would make much more sense to review the current product.
Gary Key - Monday, June 26, 2006 - link
We reviewed the recent product life update to the YD family that changed it to the RE16 family with 16MB cache and 3GB/s SATA support. The YS family (160GB~320GB range) just started shipping in volume earlier this month and samples are arriving shortly in the 160GB and 250GB sizes. We received the 320GB YS today that will be tested against the other 320GB drives from Western Digital and Seagate in the near future. Thank you for the comments.
driveguy - Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - link
Hi Gary,Thank you for your response.
YS goes from 160GB to 500GB. The real attraction for the RE products is reliability more than performance. This is really not something you can review because you will not have access to field failure rates but these drives have done quite well in high duty cycle envirements. They have crushed STX NL models in the market with the absolute lion's share of this market.
Gary Key - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
Hi,I could have been a little clearer in my 160GB~320GB statement, my point was those drive sizes just started shipping in volume this month. The 400GB and 500GB drives were shipping in May although we have not received the 400GB sample yet. I think with the YS series WD has brought the nearline performance up to and at times exceeding the SE16 line now. I think it will be interesting comparing the NL35.2 to the WD YS series since both are new product releases. We are implementing a 16 drive RAID chassis for enterprise/benchmark testing shortly so we should be able to look at some failure rate information this time next year in this market segment.
Thanks...
Squidward - Monday, June 26, 2006 - link
By looking at this article and others I've seen the Raptor is hands down the best drive you can get without going into SCSI drives. How does that apply to real usage, is the difference that notable versus the other drives in this article? I've been considering buying one if the difference is truly noticable, particularly as it applies to game loading times and recording tv programs.tallman45 - Saturday, June 24, 2006 - link
Nice job as always with the review.A more valuable comparison IMHO though would have been like cost competitors such as the new 74GB 16mb cache Raptor and the 7200.10 320gb Seagate. It stands to reason that a $300 150GB Raptor had better outperform a $90 250gb YD
Gary Key - Saturday, June 24, 2006 - link
Hi,We have the new 74GB 16MB cache Raptor arriving in about 10 days. We have completed our testing on the Seagate 320GB 7200.10 and are in the process of completing several other 200GB~320GB drives for a desktop roundup shortly in what we believe is the best price to performance range at this time. Our 500GB roundup and PVR article will be available in late July. As stated in the article we will also do a separate review on RAID performance with both nearline enterprise and desktop drives in the near future. The process of adding additional multi-tasking benchmarks along with doing both hardware (Areca) RAID and soft (nF500) RAID is painstakingly slow. ;->
The other process we have setup is an additional test bench that is currently running previously reviewed drives 24/7 with varying stress tests so we can start reporting on reliability and doing a quick follow-up on the drives performance every few months. In about two weeks, you should start seeing storage articles from us about every 10 days.
Thank you for the comments.
Gary Key - Saturday, June 24, 2006 - link
Where is the edit button? :) I meant to end my reply with "storage reviews from us about every 10 days or less."dhei - Saturday, June 24, 2006 - link
150gig raptor is around $200 now...dhei - Saturday, June 24, 2006 - link
forgot to add the 75gig Raptor is only $130. In terms of pure performance most people would go for the little premium in price for Raptor than more hd space. They just get a 200+gig drive for backup and install main apps on raptor.