Testing The 3 TB Western Digital AV-GP
The Testbed
Processors |
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Motherboard |
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Memory |
Three Kingmax 2 GB DDR3-1333 modules |
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Graphics Card |
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Hard Drives |
3 TB Western Digital Caviar Green AFT (6 Gbps) |
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Operating System |
Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit |
Testing Methodology
We tested in both Windows 7 and Windows Vista, with the latest updates. We chose to use IO Meter 2008 as well as our "old faithful", WinBench 99 2.0, with the following tests :
- Platter Data Transfer Profile
- Business Disk WinMark 99
- High-End Disk WinMark 99
- Disk Transfer Rate (Beginning)
- Disk Transfer Rate (End)
Business Disk WinMark 99 is a real-world simulation based on three office application suites - Microsoft Office 97, Lotus SmartSuite and Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, as well as a web browser, Netscape Navigator. They are quite dated, but should still reflect the usage patterns of users in an office environment using such applications. The test runs through a script that keeps multiple applications open, while it performs tasks that switches between those applications and Netscape Navigator. The result is the average transfer rate during the script run.
High-End Disk WinMark 99 is a real-world simulation based on AVS/Express 3.4, FrontPage 98, MicroStation SE, Photoshop 4.0, Premiere 4.2, Sound Forge 4.0 and Visual C++ 5.0. However, it differs by running the applications serially, instead of simultaneously. There are individual results for each application but in this comparison, we will be looking only at the weighted average score, which is the average transfer rate during the tests.
Unfortunately, WinBench 99 seemed to have some issues with Windows Vista, or the current Vista driver for the SATA controller. It would register a SetFilePointer error in the Disk Access Time test. So, we were not able to obtain any Disk Access Time results.
In addition, it would keep crashing if the hard drive was tested with a single partition. This is likely due to a limit on the size of the partition that is supported by WinBench 99. We came up with a workaround by dividing the hard drive into 4 partitions of equal sizes. We tested each partition individually and averaged the results.
Maximum Surface Temperature
We monitored the surface temperature of seven hard disk drives during their benchmarks. The following chart shows their operating temperature range, from idle to maximum load. Please note that instead of giving you the absolute numbers, we are showing the temperature delta, which is the difference between the actual temperature and the ambient room temperature.
The new Western Digital WD30EURS seems to run hotter than its Caviar Green compatriot, the WD30EZRX. The two hard disk drives were delivering roughly the same surface temperature at idle but when they ran at full load, the 3 TB AV-GP was 2.6 °C hotter than the 3 TB Caviar Green, even though both drives were physically similar.
That said, we have to point out that the new 3 TB Western Digital AV-GP drive is still significantly cooler than its 2 TB non-AFT predecessor, the WD20EVDS. In fact, the WD30EURS running at full load is 1.6 °C cooler than the WD20EVDS at idle.
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