1TB and 5400 tpm: Western Caviar Green vs Samsung EcoGreen (page 6: I/O Meter)

IOMeter

IOMeter is used to simulate the load in a multi-user environment by using a server type file load comprised of 80% reading and 20% writing all in a 100% random manner on the drive. In this type of situation, NCQ can be particularly useful because of multiple concurrent commands. In this test, we measured performances expressed in inputs/outputs per second (IO/s) with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128 simultaneous commands.

The more simultaneous commands there are, the greater the advantage to Western over Samsung. Although with just a single command the SpinPoint F1 is faster than the Western Green, the Westerns have an advantage afterwards.

With AAM, performances are clearly down, especially the Westerns, which allows the Samsungs to catch up a bit. Although without AAM activated the cache between the 16 and 32 MB versions made a difference with the Caviar Greens, here they give equivalent results. Note that with noise level reduction activated, the SpinPoint was fastest, then overtaken by the Westerns which manage NCQ better.