HD Tach 3.0.4.0	Source: TCD Labs Inc.

HD Tach is a physical performance hard drive test for Windows 95/98/ME and Windows NT/2000. In Windows 9X/ME it uses a special kernel mode VXD to get maximum accuracy by bypassing the file system. A similar mechanism is used in Windows NT/2000/XP. HD Tach reads from areas all over the hard drive and reports an average speed. It also logs the read speeds to a text file that you can load into a spreadsheet and graph to visually read the results of the test. Higher bandwidth (MB/s) and lower latencies (ms) are better.

HD Tach 3.0.4 - 8MB Tests - READ Burst Speed: (Mb/s) Points Ranking Western Digital RE4 1TB WD1003FBYX HDD 209.9 Western Digital 1TB WD1001FALS HDD 214.7 SanDisk Etreme 240GB SSD 293.3 OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD 356.3 OCZ Vertex 2 128GB SSD 266.6 Plextor PX-128M1S SSD 143.4 Seagate 3TB Barracuda XT HDD 366.4 Seagate 2TB Barracuda XT HDD 336.4 Seagate 750GB Momentus XT SSHD 405.1 Seagate 500GB Momentus XT SSHD 231.7 Average Read: (MB/s) Points Ranking Western Digital RE4 1TB WD1003FBYX HDD 115.2 Western Digital 1TB WD1001FALS HDD 90.5 SanDisk Etreme 240GB SSD 369.2 OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD 390.2 OCZ Vertex 2 128GB SSD 243.7 Plextor PX-128M1S SSD 103.4 Seagate 3TB Barracuda XT HDD 137.3 Seagate 2TB Barracuda XT HDD 115.5 Seagate 750GB Momentus XT SSHD 95.9 Seagate 500GB Momentus XT SSHD 89.4 Random Access Time: (ms) Points Ranking Western Digital RE4 1TB WD1003FBYX HDD 11.8 Western Digital 1TB WD1001FALS HDD 12.1 SanDisk Etreme 240GB SSD 0.1 OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD 0.1 OCZ Vertex 2 128GB SSD 0.1 Plextor PX-128M1S SSD 0.3 Seagate 3TB Barracuda XT HDD 16.7 Seagate 2TB Barracuda XT HDD 17 Seagate 750GB Momentus XT SSHD 0.4 Seagate 500GB Momentus XT SSHD 17

Sustained (average) read rates for the SanDisk Extreme 240GB SSD are 369.2MB/s, just a bit behind the OCZ Vertex 3 SSD. Likewise, burst speed is 293MB/s for the SD Extreme and 356MB/s for the OCZ SSD. 03.4MB/s). Random access time drops to 0.1ms for the solid state disks while the slower mechanical drives hover around 8-12ms.

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