RESULTS: Short-Stroke Single 640gb WD Black

[Bios24]

So I got a new 640gb WD Black, and read up about short-stroking. Here are the results. I ended up leaving it formatted at 200gb. (I've read that the highest throughput is in the first 1/3 of the drive, these results support that) I'm pretty happy with the results, for anyone that doesn't need all the space it's a worth-while modification.

I used Hitatchi's Feature Tool to change the capacity of the drive. Download the bootable cd here: http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

 

[ratbuddy]

Short stroking is pretty silly, unless you are 100% sure that the drive(s) won't be accessing anything on the second partition. Yes, it looks better in benchmarks, but you are making the heads travel that much farther in real world use.

 

[Bios24]

Correct, short-stroking only works if you have 1 partition. (and it mainly looks good in benchmarks, it's not changing the actual physical drive performance) That's why I opted to use Hitachi's tool to change the actual size of the drive. Windows can't even see anything beyond 200gb right now. I wanted to be sure the drive wouldn't go beyond 200gb.

 

[Bios24]

and FYI, the 15gb bench was just for fun. I wouldn't expect anyone to buy a 640gb drive to make a 15gb partition. (dedicated drive for games perhaps?)

 

[MadMan007]

Well just FYI but if you partition a drive rather than modifying the size because you don't want to throw away the extra capacity it does the same thing, you just have to know what to keep on each partition, turn off indexing for the storage partition and things like that.

 

[ratbuddy]

Well just FYI but if you partition a drive rather than modifying the size because you don't want to throw away the extra capacity it does the same thing, you just have to know what to keep on each partition, turn off indexing for the storage partition and things like that.

True, but there are some folks who think that just because you make a small partition and RAID 0 it, then put the rest of your stuff on another partition on the rest of the drive, it will perform better. It'll bench better, but perform worse in real use.

 

[MadMan007]

What configuration will it perform worse than, and why?

 

[freeagent]

True, but there are some folks who think that just because you make a small partition and RAID 0 it, then put the rest of your stuff on another partition on the rest of the drive, it will perform better. It'll bench better, but perform worse in real use.

Not true at all, its still much better then just useing a single drive

 

[nd4spdbh2]

Short stroking a drive the way you did is about as pointless as blinker fluid for your car. Put a partition on the first part how ever much you, and leave the rest unallocated or put storage files on there.... All your doing is limiting where files can be written to the hd. A partition does the same thing yet will still allow you to use the whole drive via a second partition.

True, but there are some folks who think that just because you make a small partition and RAID 0 it, then put the rest of your stuff on another partition on the rest of the drive, it will perform better. It'll bench better, but perform worse in real use.

slicing out the first part on a matrix raid like i do does have its benefits (same as listed above... keeps your files at the edge of the disk) but it REALLY sucks when your transferring from the raid 0 on the beginning of the disks, to a raid 1 in my case on the inner part of the disks... or heavily using the raid 1 when ur os and apps are on the raid 0.... i guess its the same as if you were writing tons to one partition and trying to access stuff on another on the same disk.

 

[visbits]

slicing out the first part on a matrix raid like i do does have its benefits (same as listed above... keeps your files at the edge of the disk) but it REALLY sucks when your transferring from the raid 0 on the beginning of the disks, to a raid 1 in my case on the inner part of the disks... or heavily using the raid 1 when ur os and apps are on the raid 0.... i guess its the same as if you were writing tons to one partition and trying to access stuff on another on the same disk.

Switching between raid 1 and raid 0 on matrix raid is slow and can actually lockup under a decent amount of load. I've experienced it and read many horror stories.


And I don't think this guy asked for your opinion on how to use his drives.

 

[neonblingbling]

6.7 ms seek? That's faster than my old Raptor! (also smaller )

 

[nd4spdbh2]

Switching between raid 1 and raid 0 on matrix raid is slow and can actually lockup under a decent amount of load. I've experienced it and read many horror stories.


And I don't think this guy asked for your opinion on how to use his drives.

ya i hardly ever use my raid 1... just storage really.. but when im writing a bunch to it and try and access the raid 0... holly crap sllooooow.

as far as my opinion i never said anything about how to use his drives... just that short stroking the way he did is pointless given that you can use a partition to achieve the same thing, just as you can with 2 whole disks in raid 0, vs slicing out the first part with matrix raid.

 

[Know Nuttin]

Why do people not care about random 4k performance for HDD's? That's what I'd like to see. SSD's are really looked at for 2 things: Random 4k writes and random IOPS performance.

 

[Mr Alpha]

Why do people not care about random 4k performance for HDD's? That's what I'd like to see. SSD's are really looked at for 2 things: Random 4k writes and random IOPS performance.

Because looking at a benchmark which remain much the same regardless of what you do is boring.

 

[MadMan007]

Why do people not care about random 4k performance for HDD's? That's what I'd like to see. SSD's are really looked at for 2 things: Random 4k writes and random IOPS performance.

How much would a 200GB SSD cost?

 

[GotNoRice]

When I did this with Dual 500g drives, I just put long-term storage stuff on the larger partition like movies, etc. Those files are pretty much never accessed while I'm gaming and when I'm watching a movie performance doesn't matter.

 

[ratbuddy]

When I did this with Dual 500g drives, I just put long-term storage stuff on the larger partition like movies, etc. Those files are pretty much never accessed while I'm gaming and when I'm watching a movie performance doesn't matter.

Data files, sure. But I've heard of people doing a 40GB (or smaller) slice for just the OS and putting all their games on the other partition. That's a great way to slow down a computer.

 

[freeagent]

But its not, its how I run mine, and it works very well

I do use 2 raid0 slices tho, raid1 gets no play in my system

 

[ratbuddy]

But its not, its how I run mine, and it works very well

I do use 2 raid0 slices tho, raid1 gets no play in my system

If you're doing any gaming while doing other stuff, it's giving you worse access times than if you just had one big partition. Sure, if you're working strictly on the OS section, it'll be a hair faster, but when both are working at once, the heads just have to much that much farther than they would if it was all one partition.

Realistically though, if it works and you like it, it's good enough

 

[freeagent]

Thats the thing, when I game, thats all my pc is doing, Im not a hardcore multitasker heheh