WinBench 99 Test Results

Thanks to their higher spindle speed, the AV-optimized versions were faster than their desktop versions in Business Disk WinMark 99.

However, in the High-End tests, the 3 TB Caviar Green was somehow faster than the AV-optimized version.

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IO Meter Test Results

While the results of the 2 TB drives were quite similar, the 3 TB Caviar Green was 24% faster at small random reads, compared to its AV-optimized brother.

Although there was no doubt that the AV-optimized drives were faster in small sequential reads and writes, this can be explained by their higher spindle speed. What cannot be explained though is why the 2 TB Caviar Green performed so poorly.

In large random accesses, the 2 TB drives were again quite similar in performance. When we look at the 3 TB drives though, we can see that the AV-GP drive was better at writes, while the regular Caviar Green was better at reads. However, because the improvement in the AV-GP's write speed can be explained by its higher spindle speed, what this really shows is a significant drop in its read speed.

The large sequential test results dovetails nicely with the higher spindle speed. In this respect, the drive's performance was entirely due to its higher spindle speed.

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Conclusion

Although we expected the AV-optimized drives to be much better at writes, that's apparently more marketing fluff than fact. The AV-optimized drives' performance improvements are mostly, if not entirely, due to their higher spindle speeds. That said, there is no denying that the AV-GP hard disk drives are faster than their regular Caviar Green compatriots. So we have to admit too that at least in this case, those dealers were correct in saying that the AV-optimized drives are superior to regular hard disk drives.

However, please note that these are merely our test results on the Western Digital hard disk drives. The performance characteristics may be different for other or future hard disk drives. For more hard disk drive performance comparisons, please check out our Hard Disk Drive Performance Comparison Guide. Also, check out our Hard Disk Drive Myths Debunked article.

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