Seagate vs Maxtor tradeoffs

Question

Level 1

35 points

Seagate vs Maxtor tradeoffs

So it's been well documented that Seagate drives perform poorly with small size files (1Kb - 16Kb). But their performance on larger files > 1MB is great, particularly read performance.

Just today I received my 8 core Mac Pro and I have 2 500GB Seagate drives and 2 500GB Maxtor drives to compare. I raided both sets of drives and peformed several speed tests.

For small files, the Maxtor crushes the Seagate, particularly 4KB sized files. But the Seagate crushed the Maxtor in larger files 1MB - 10MB in particular.

So my question is, is it more important to have faster performance on small files, or is it more important to have max performance on large files.

I do a little bit with video, but that's really just 5% of my time. Mostly I'm going to be doing application development (Java), running multiple virtual machines (thus the 8 core - for those of you wondering why I bought such a beast), watching video, listening to music, and some graphic design.

It seems to me that faster small file performance would suit me best. But I don't know... and that's what I'm asking for help with =)

Thanks for you input.

Mac Pro 8-core 3Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.9), 30" CD, iSight, 5GB RAM, dual 500GB HD, 23" CD

Posted on Apr 26, 2007 12:56 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Kevin Woon Author

Level 1

35 points

Apr 26, 2007 12:57 PM in response to Kevin Woon

BTW, here are the results I got:

QuickBench™ 2.1 Test Results File
©2000-2005 Intech Software Corp.
Test file created on Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 11:30:20 AM
Test Volume name: SeagateRaid

Xfer Size Sequential Read Sequential Write Random Read Random Write

1 KByte 1.205 MB/sec 1.591 MB/sec 92.779 KB/sec 150.353 KB/sec
2 KBytes 1.168 MB/sec 1.498 MB/sec 10.078 MB/sec 248.564 KB/sec
4 KBytes 2.169 MB/sec 15.996 MB/sec 4.204 MB/sec 15.082 MB/sec
8 KBytes 4.184 MB/sec 28.807 MB/sec 3.550 MB/sec 24.529 MB/sec
16 KBytes 15.085 MB/sec 58.346 MB/sec 3.349 MB/sec 46.200 MB/sec
32 KBytes 33.806 MB/sec 109.037 MB/sec 11.104 MB/sec 85.852 MB/sec
64 KBytes 79.517 MB/sec 170.718 MB/sec 7.490 MB/sec 140.166 MB/sec
128 KBytes 104.638 MB/sec 243.285 MB/sec 14.315 MB/sec 194.522 MB/sec
256 KBytes 182.110 MB/sec 194.039 MB/sec 19.981 MB/sec 258.826 MB/sec
512 KBytes 100.144 MB/sec 306.222 MB/sec 32.341 MB/sec 298.418 MB/sec
1024 KBytes 109.839 MB/sec 221.803 MB/sec 54.165 MB/sec 252.864 MB/sec

Extended Test Size: 2 MB Read: 89.622 MB/sec Write: 232.748 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 3 MB Read: 67.872 MB/sec Write: 306.717 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 4 MB Read: 82.587 MB/sec Write: 299.805 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 5 MB Read: 76.385 MB/sec Write: 259.323 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 6 MB Read: 118.276 MB/sec Write: 211.678 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 7 MB Read: 78.565 MB/sec Write: 315.756 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 8 MB Read: 62.135 MB/sec Write: 212.438 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 9 MB Read: 88.274 MB/sec Write: 300.360 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 10 MB Read: 81.361 MB/sec Write: 262.089 MB/sec

QuickBench™ 2.1 Test Results File
©2000-2005 Intech Software Corp.
Test file created on Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 11:38:20 AM
Test Volume name: MaxtorRaid

Xfer Size Sequential Read Sequential Write Random Read Random Write

1 KByte 5.918 MB/sec 688.614 KB/sec 5.570 MB/sec 289.963 KB/sec
2 KBytes 12.230 MB/sec 5.971 MB/sec 9.394 MB/sec 5.787 MB/sec
4 KBytes 23.877 MB/sec 21.115 MB/sec 23.503 MB/sec 21.427 MB/sec
8 KBytes 51.129 MB/sec 38.888 MB/sec 42.116 MB/sec 36.817 MB/sec
16 KBytes 26.546 MB/sec 60.515 MB/sec 77.008 MB/sec 62.726 MB/sec
32 KBytes 24.148 MB/sec 90.580 MB/sec 109.726 MB/sec 99.081 MB/sec
64 KBytes 51.255 MB/sec 174.240 MB/sec 188.594 MB/sec 187.631 MB/sec
128 KBytes 62.903 MB/sec 219.068 MB/sec 265.731 MB/sec 228.061 MB/sec
256 KBytes 105.046 MB/sec 273.254 MB/sec 316.336 MB/sec 286.205 MB/sec
512 KBytes 145.569 MB/sec 195.046 MB/sec 350.410 MB/sec 160.108 MB/sec
1024 KBytes 179.266 MB/sec 169.707 MB/sec 114.965 MB/sec 130.324 MB/sec

Extended Test Size: 2 MB Read: 55.030 MB/sec Write: 271.924 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 3 MB Read: 63.542 MB/sec Write: 277.162 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 4 MB Read: 110.580 MB/sec Write: 204.155 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 5 MB Read: 96.128 MB/sec Write: 272.494 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 6 MB Read: 113.082 MB/sec Write: 230.247 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 7 MB Read: 73.524 MB/sec Write: 87.438 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 8 MB Read: 108.530 MB/sec Write: 193.601 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 9 MB Read: 56.079 MB/sec Write: 208.584 MB/sec
Extended Test Size: 10 MB Read: 80.585 MB/sec Write: 146.542 MB/sec

Reply

Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Apr 26, 2007 1:03 PM in response to Kevin Woon

Speedtools QuickBench was 3.1, is now 4.0 and much more accurate.
Updates are free for life for retail copies.
http://www.speedtools.com

Use Maxtor 300 or 500GB and Seagate for RAID perhaps.

Reply

Answer 3

Kevin Woon Author

Level 1

35 points

Apr 26, 2007 1:10 PM in response to The hatter

Thanks for the quick reply...

I would update, but I only have the OEM version and I don't want to pay $90 for something I rarely use... of course I am using it at the moment =)

Anyway, I intend to only keep 2 drives and RAID 0 them. I had bought the Seagates first only to read about the performance issues... then I bought the Maxtors. But when I got the Seagates I found that they had a very new firmware version, 3.AAK, and I had hoped that this would have solved the issue, so I tried them. But apparently the firmware didn't help.

Reply

Answer 4

Apr 26, 2007 1:12 PM in response to Kevin Woon

For small files, the Maxtor crushes the Seagate, particularly 4KB sized files.

In this regard the Maxtors crush pratically everything, even the Raptors.

So my question is, is it more important to have faster performance on small files, or is it more important to have max performance on large files.

It depends on your usage as I'm sure you've realised already. For those that move large files like video editors the Seagates are great.

However, for most of us though the Maxtors will outperform the Seagates through normal usage. You might want to note that Mac OS X is built upon a multitude of small files.

Reply

Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Apr 26, 2007 1:21 PM in response to infinite vortex

]QuickBench(TM) 4.0 Test Results
©2000-2007 Intech Software Corp.
Test file created on Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 3:18:32 PM
Test Volume Name: Raptor
Test Volume Type: MacOS Extended
Test Volume Size: 68.929 Gigabytes
Test Volume Free Space: 51.778 Gigabytes
Allow Disk Cache Effects: Enabled
Read Cache Delay: 30 milliseconds
Write Cache Delay: 20 milliseconds
All reads and writes performed sychronously

Standard Test Results:
Test Cycles: 1

Transfer Size Sequential Read Sequential Write Random Read Random Write

4 KBytes 38.525 MB/Sec 31.660 MB/Sec 0.808 MB/Sec 37.417 MB/Sec
8 KBytes 58.127 MB/Sec 51.354 MB/Sec 1.860 MB/Sec 43.870 MB/Sec
16 KBytes 78.454 MB/Sec 73.298 MB/Sec 3.637 MB/Sec 44.291 MB/Sec
32 KBytes 91.656 MB/Sec 92.313 MB/Sec 6.675 MB/Sec 30.591 MB/Sec
64 KBytes 93.518 MB/Sec 109.328 MB/Sec 13.252 MB/Sec 52.412 MB/Sec
128 KBytes 93.377 MB/Sec 117.681 MB/Sec 25.392 MB/Sec 45.247 MB/Sec
256 KBytes 90.312 MB/Sec 124.160 MB/Sec 37.399 MB/Sec 57.638 MB/Sec
512 KBytes 90.219 MB/Sec 118.763 MB/Sec 45.814 MB/Sec 31.983 MB/Sec
1024 KBytes 93.483 MB/Sec 125.917 MB/Sec 58.095 MB/Sec 57.826 MB/Sec

Standard Ave 80.852 MB/Sec 93.831 MB/Sec 21.437 MB/Sec 44.586 MB/Sec

QuickBench 4 Results WD 10K Raptor (74GB 16MB cache)

Reply

Answer 6

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Apr 26, 2007 3:57 PM in response to The hatter

Just installed MaxLine Pro, turns out 500GB = 465.8GB

Sweet drive though! Very quick, running some QB/ZB tests across it now.

Reply

Answer 7

Apr 28, 2007 8:31 PM in response to infinite vortex

What about the new eSATA drives and their purported high transfer rates (up to 5X that of USB 2.0 or Firewire (400, I assume)? How do they compare to an internal Seagate or Maxtor drive for speed of transfer etc. in a Mac Pro

Mac Pro 2.66; 1 GB RAM (until price drops from heavenly highs 🙂 ) Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Reply

Answer 8

Apr 29, 2007 8:41 AM in response to Sanjay Sesodia

That would depend on yur eSATA solution and no, performance would not exceed that of an internal drive under the same conditions. Performance should actually be the same.

Reply

Answer 9

Apr 29, 2007 11:23 AM in response to The hatter

I really like my 2 MaxLine Pro drives also. They produce a bit more heat than I prefer. I was going to get another two before they become scarce, but think I might wait a while and get something else for internal drives. I don't know yet what that will be, so I'm keeping an eye on the drive discussions.

I think I'd also like one large 750G FW800 for backups. Then, I could use my smaller FW and USB drives for off-site storage.

Reply