Hdd disk speed test. How to check disk speed: HDD, SSD

Often, users are faced with the fact that their computer starts to work slowly. Files take a long time to copy and the system boots slowly. It turns out that all these indicators are affected by the speed of the disk. To find out the characteristics of the hard drive, it is recommended to use specialized software.

It is important to note that for HDD and SSD disk but the indicators will differ. This is due to the characteristics of iron. Solid state drives are significantly faster. On a regular hard drive, loading the OS takes about 40 seconds. As for the SSD, then on such a disk, the system will boot in 7 seconds.

Choosing a program for testing

Actually check speed hard disk can be a large number of programs that differ in functionality and principle of operation. Despite the abundance of software, it is recommended to pay attention to the following applications:

It doesn't matter which program is chosen for testing. It is important to analyze each product before installation and use, and then study the instructions.

Crystal Disk Mark is a utility designed to check the speed of the hard drive. It should be noted that the utility can also check removable media.

The test procedure allows you to find out the speed at which the HDD... Thanks to the data obtained, you can determine the media suitable for installing the OS. CrystalDiskMark can test a disk in 4 ways. These include:

  • Seq - Check sequential read (write). The block size is 1 MB;
  • 512K - Random read detection. The block is 512 KB;
  • 4K - Analysis of random write (read). The queue depth is 1 and the block is 4 kb
  • 4K QD32 - speed detection for AHCL and NCQ.

If desired, you can use the "All" button. After that, testing of the hard disk will begin. The program will start all existing modes one by one. To test the disk you need:

  1. Launch CrystalDiskMark;
  2. Set the number of read and write cycles. The optimal value is "5";
  3. Select a hard drive;
  4. Setting the size of files for analysis. It is best to choose - 1 GiB;
  5. Press the button to start the test.

Verification takes only a few minutes. It is recommended to save the results to a file to make it easier to compare the indicators of several hard ones.

A utility that allows you to find out the read and write speed of a disk connected to a computer. The program is able to work not only with HDD, but also with SSD. In addition to testing, the application can determine the performance of the hard drive. It should be noted that there are 2 versions of the program, paid and free. The differences lie in the "cut-down" of the free product.

The main features of the utility include:

  • Low-level performance testing;
  • Getting detailed information about the disk;
  • Checking the "health" of the hard drive;
  • Disk error monitoring;
  • Definition temperature regime devices;
  • Additional tests.

The "Pro" version has much more possibilities. It is important to note that you can work for free in full version for 15 days.

After starting the application, you will see 4 tabs:

  1. Benchmark.
  2. Info.
  3. Health.
  4. Error Scan.

The first tab is for checking the speed of the hard drive. After the analysis, the results will appear in the right window of the program, which are displayed in the following categories:

  • Processor load indicator;
  • Peak speed of work;
  • Time interval of system access to files;
  • Average speed indicators;
  • Lowest speed indicator;
  • Maximum speed value.

Hard disk speed test is not the only feature of the program. In the "Info" tab, the utility will display detailed information about the disk. The list will display information such as the model of the hard drive, serial number, volume, etc.

The Health tab displays the status health hard disk. In the event that the "Ok" indicator is set everywhere, there is no need to worry about the device. This means that everything is functioning correctly.

The last tab allows you to find errors hard drives... The search process may take some time. Green squares indicate that everything is fine. Red ones indicate damage.

The program is designed to monitor the status of the hard drive. If the readings fall below the acceptable level, the device will stop reading data. Ashampoo tracks the level of performance metrics. The program supports:

  • USB sticks.

Thanks to the intuitive interface, you have the ability to track performance, temperature and much more. It should be noted that the utility supports self-checking "health".

The main features of the program include:

  • 24/7 control of hard drives;
  • The ability to self-test the carrier;
  • Retrieving data about logical disks;
  • Defragmentation;
  • Monitoring and recovery of deleted data;
  • Scanning and deleting duplicates;
  • Data transfer rate analysis;
  • Checking the temperature of the hard drive.

The program for measuring the speed and other indicators of the hard drive has an intuitive interface. For ease of management, sections were created that are necessary for the following tasks:

  • Control;
  • Defragmentation;
  • Testing;
  • Removing traces of the Internet;
  • Disk cleanup.

In the first tab "Control" you can see detailed information about hard drives, including performance and temperature. If necessary, you can create a report.

The "Defragmentation" section allows you to defragment any disk connected to your computer. For convenience, the program visualizes the layout of data in different sectors of the hard drive. Before proceeding with defragmentation, it is recommended to perform an analysis.

The Testing tab allows you to check the status of your hard drive. After going to the section, you must select the hard one you are interested in. Then you should click on the "Start" button. It is important to note that at the time of testing the disk, it is not recommended to perform any manipulations with the computer.

When testing is completed, the screen will display detailed information... Since it is not difficult to find out the speed, it is recommended to carefully study other features of the utility. If you have any questions, you should seek help from the manual.

Conclusion

Do not forget that the health of the computer will directly depend on the state of the hard disk. Therefore, it is recommended to run the program to test the hard drive at least once a week. As for the choice of application, it is best to pay attention to the CrystalDiskMark program, as it does not contain anything superfluous. At the same time, Crystal does an excellent job with its task.

Video review of programs for testing hard

Important to the system. The device helps the device to function, saves user data and is a kind of computer flash drive. But the hard drive can be very different, so many people want to know how to check the speed of the hard drive.

Device operation

What is a hard drive for, and how does its speed affect performance? The storage device stores data and gives free access to it. The mechanism is based on magnetic recording.

Outwardly, it will be difficult to figure out how to find out the speed of a hard drive. Magnetic disks and a reading head are located under the plastic case. In working order, it does not touch the plates. The minimum distance between the parts ensures the process of reading and writing information thanks to the air flow.

Now the hard drive is getting more and more criticism from users. Especially since the advent of the solid state drive. Thanks to the SSD, users have learned that the system can have a faster drive that can easily handle the most resource-intensive tasks.

But for now, SSDs are very expensive, so most people only use the combination option or even prefer to do without an SSD.

Hard drive specifications

Before you understand how to check the speed of a hard drive, you need to understand what other hard drive parameters are that would affect the performance of the device.

The railway interface is now universal. SATA III is the most common type of interaction between two devices, in our case a hard drive and a PC. Thanks to the interface, you can connect a hard disk drive to a computer, and they will interact correctly. Besides SATA, eSATA, SAS, FireWire, etc. are also available.

When choosing a hard drive, the user pays attention to the capacity. For many, this is the most important parameter, since it is necessary to calculate how much information can be stored. Now the most optimal is a 500 GB - 1 TB hard disk drive. This is quite enough for installing games, resource-intensive programs and downloading movies.

The next parameter affects performance. Random access time indicates the average time taken to position the head for read and write.

This parameter can have indicators from 2.5 to 16 ms. The smaller it is, the faster the device will work. By comparison, all SSDs have a random access time of less than 1ms. Hence the lightning-fast loading of the system and resource-intensive programs working with SSD.

The next parameter also affects the overall speed of the hard drive. How to check the number of spindle rotations? Here you can use information on the Internet or install the appropriate utility.

This indicator provides information about the spindle speed. The characteristic affects the access time and average speed data transmission. V this case it is better to choose a hard drive that would have an indicator of 7200 rpm. Although for home PCs, a device with a speed of 5400 and 5900 may be suitable. But you need to be prepared for the fact that system loading and resource-intensive programs will load slowly.

For servers and workstations, hard drives with 10,000 and 15,000 rpm are chosen.

The baud rate can also be found during the hard disk test. This indicator directly affects the performance of the hard drive. The higher the data transfer rate, the faster you can transfer files to the hard disk drive.

Examination

How to check the speed work hard disk? Of course, the first thing that comes to mind in this case is special utilities... Thanks to the program, you can find out any parameters of the hard drive, as well as scan the device for errors.

But not only software can help you learn how to check the speed of your hard drive. Thanks to the software components of the computer, it is also possible to analyze the parameters of the device.

Software components

To check the read and write speed of the hard disk, you need to use a special command. But for this you need to run the "Command Line". In the "Start" you need to select the "System" section, and then Windows. In the new window you can find the "Command Line". Further right click mouse (RMB), you need to run the service as administrator.

You can also use the key combination Win + R, where "Win" is the operating system icon on the keyboard. In the line "Run" you must enter the command "cmd".

To test the hard drive, you must enter the command "winsat disk" without using quotes. The system will collect all the data about the device and display it in a dialog box. What should you pay attention to?

Disk Random 16.0 Read, Disk Sequential 64.0 Read and Disk Sequential 64.0 Write. The device performance index will also be indicated, which can also be found in the system properties.

To get additional data about the railway, you need to leave the " Command line»Enter the required commands. For example, to determine the speed of reading, enter "-read", writing - "-write" (without quotes).

Programs

But the best way to test a hard drive is support programs... For example, CrystalDiskMark is a simple and straightforward software that will help you collect data about your hard drive and solid-state drive. It can be installed on a computer with operating system Windows versions XP and higher. From the official site you can download the utility for free and with a Russian interface.

You can also use the AS SSD Benchmark program. This utility is similar to the previous one, it has a similar interface. It quickly collects data about a hard drive or solid-state drive and organizes it into a simple table. Despite the English interface, you can still understand the report and find the necessary data.

Configuring CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD Benchmark

Of course, you can delve into this issue, understand the hard drive overclocking technologies, but there is a big risk that an inexperienced user can ruin the device, which will lead to system failures. Therefore, many propose to regularly perform some operations that will help, albeit insignificantly, but still speed up the work of the railway.

It is advisable to check the disk regularly. To do this, go to "My Computer", select one of the sections and right-click on it. Then select "Properties" and go to the "Service" tab. You can also defragment the disk right there.

Solid state drives (SSDs) have become part of our lives. Giving the user many advantages over traditional HDDs (higher speed of reading and writing information, quiet operation, low power consumption and high resistance to mechanical damage), they, nevertheless, are not without a number of disadvantages (for example, shorter operating time compared to HDD). Accordingly, their condition must be monitored from time to time in order to track negative changes in their functionality in time. In this article I will tell you how to check an SSD drive for errors, how the tools will help us find out the operability and how to use them.

SSD resource limitations

If you are wondering about checking an SSD drive for errors and operability, it means that a situation may arise in which your SSD has ceased to function normally. This is primarily due to the fact that SSD ( Solid State Drive - Solid State Drive) allows you to record information on itself a limited number of times (the resource of competitors SSD - HDD disks is not limited in this regard). Manufacturers usually provide a 3-year warranty on their SSD drives (or 35 terabytes of data written, which is roughly 20 gigabytes per day). Those who actively use their SSD drive (on various round-the-clock servers, and so on) may face a faster failure of SSD devices.

Well, those users who work with their PC in normal, "home" mode, can enjoy fast work their SDOs for 5 or more years.

How to check an SSD drive for errors and performance - list of programs

If you do not need to know the performance of an SSD disk, then you should use the functionality of the corresponding programs that will allow you to perform an ssd test for errors. Below I will list these programs, and give their respective characteristics:

CrystalDiskInfo program

It is a free utility that checks the read-write speed of your disk, displays its general health, temperature, supports S.M.A.R.T (health assessment technology hard disk) and much more. This program and CrystalDiskInfo has two main versions (installable and portable), and in the case of the installed version, you can monitor the status of your disks in real time using the program icon in the system tray. If there is a pressing question about how to check ssd on broken sectors, then the program CrystalDiskInfo will effectively help you with this.

  1. To use the program, download it, install and run it.
  2. The program will scan your hard drive to assess its status, errors, and so on, and then give you the result.
  3. All the main actions are concentrated in the "Service" tab of the main menu (in particular, if necessary, you can set the function of disk rescanning there).

SSD Life Program

To determine the health and errors of an SSD, the SSD Life program can also help us. This conditionally free utility written specifically for work with SSD-disks, allowing you to track in advance the decline in their performance. As in the case of CrystalDiskInfo, this program has two versions - portable (it gives a report on the state of the disk immediately upon launch, without additional installation), and installation, displaying the status of the disk in real time so that the user can track the situation in advance.

The working window of the program is extremely simple, on it you will see the projected operating time of your disk, an assessment of its condition, how long it has already worked, and so on. To update the report data, use the corresponding buttons below.

SSDReady program

SSD diagnostics can also be performed using SSDReady, a program designed specifically to monitor the health of your SSD drive, estimate its potential uptime, and other relevant statistics. It keeps track of the amount of data recorded and read from the disk every day, requires its permanent work on background and is a good option in checking an SSD drive for errors and overall health.

DiskCheckup Utility

V testing hard SSD disk for speed and performance, the DiscCheckup utility can also help us, which allows you to monitor the S.M.A.R.T attributes of a separate hard disk. As with the above programs, this application shows statistics of the hard disk, allowing you to track the health status of the latter. The functionality of this product, in fact, does not differ from the programs described above.

HDDScan program

HDDScan is a free utility for diagnosing hard drives (RAID, Flash USB, SSDs of interest to us are also supported). This program can be a convenient and handy tool in the question "how to check an SSD for errors", it searches for errors on the hard drive (bad blocks and sectors), supports the demonstration of SMART attributes and changing some HDD parameters (AAM, APM, and so on) ... This product can be used to regularly "test the health" of your disk and prevent its degradation, you can avoid losing the files you need by creating appropriate backups when necessary.

Increase SSD hard disk speed 10 times [video]

The answer to the question of how to test an SSD drive for errors and performance is to use a number of special diagnostic programs that I described just above. Most of them have fairly simple functionality, allowing you to monitor the status of your SSD in real time and, if necessary, perform additional checks. If you are the happy owner of such disks, then use the functionality of one of the described programs to regularly monitor the status of your device, this will allow you to timely track its condition and save your files from unwanted losses.

Whatever speed the manufacturer indicates in the characteristics of their SSDs, the user always wants to check everything in practice. But find out how close the drive's speed is to the declared one without help third-party programs impossible. The most that can be done is to compare how quickly files are copied on a solid state drive with similar results from a magnetic drive. In order to find out the real speed, you need to use a special utility.

Solid State Drive Speed ​​Test

As a solution, we will choose a simple program called. It has a Russified interface and is very easy to use. So let's get started.

Immediately after launch, the main window will open in front of us, which contains all the necessary settings and information.

Before starting the test, let's set a couple of parameters: the number of checks and the file size. The measurement accuracy will depend on the first parameter. By and large, the five default checks are sufficient to get correct measurements. But if you want to get more accurate information, then you can set the maximum value.

The second parameter is the size of the file, which will be read and written during the tests. The value of this parameter will also affect both the measurement accuracy and the test execution time. However, in order not to shorten the service life of the SSD, you can set the value of this parameter to 100 Megabytes.

After setting all the parameters, we proceed to the selection of the disk. Everything is simple here, expand the list and select our solid state drive.

Now you can go directly to testing. The CrystalDiskMark application provides five tests:

  • Seq Q32T1- testing of sequential writing / reading of a file with a depth of 32 per stream;
  • 4K Q32T1- testing of random writing / reading of 4 Kilobyte blocks with a depth of 32 per stream;
  • Seq- testing sequential write / read with a depth of 1;
  • 4K- testing random write / read with a depth of 1.

Each of the tests can be run separately, just click on the green button of the required test and wait for the result.

You can also do full testing by clicking on the All button.

In order to get more accurate results, it is necessary to close all (if possible) active programs(especially torrents), and it is also desirable that the disk is no more than half full.

Since in everyday use personal computer Most often, a random method of reading / writing data is used (in 80%), then we will be more interested in the results of the second (4K Q32t1) and fourth (4K) tests.

Now let's analyze the results of our test. A 128 GB ADATA SP900 disk was used as a "test subject". As a result, we got the following:

  • with the sequential method, the drive reads data at a speed 210-219 Mbps;
  • recording with the same method is the slowest - of all 118 Mbps;
  • reading with a random method with a depth of 1 occurs at speed 20 Mbps;
  • writing with a similar method - 50 Mbps;
  • reading and writing with a depth of 32 - 118 Mbps and 99 Mbps, respectively.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that reading / writing is performed at high speeds only with files the size of which is equal to the size of the buffer. Those with a larger buffer will both read and copy slower.

So, with the help of a small program, we can easily estimate the speed of an SSD and compare it with the one indicated by the manufacturers. By the way, this speed is usually overestimated, and with the help of CrystalDiskMark you can find out exactly how much.

Nowadays, disk subsystems are being modernized at an accelerated pace for almost any hoster. Solid state drives have become a significant leap forward in improving the performance of computer and server hardware. The fact is that the disc has been bottleneck, which is called the "weak link", in the performance of any information systems... In other words, all other components are a processor, RAM, system buses and even the network - everything has long been much faster and more efficient than storage devices. SSD gives an increase in the performance of any device by about 3-5 times. This means any application will launch several times faster, sometimes even tens of times faster.

So, the hoster offers you two tariff lines - SSD and not_SSD. You get an SSD, of course. But how to make sure that the hosting provider actually issued an SSD? After all, it makes no difference for the site to work - everything will work for you on hosting with any disk. That is, in theory, the hoster can announce to you that it has servers on fast solid-state drives. But in fact, to sell capacities on conventional traditional HDDs. And you most likely won't even know about it.

After all, SSDs are much more expensive than conventional drives. And hosters have serious capacities, they need to store terabytes of data. Can you imagine how much such systems can cost, given that 1 GB of solid state drive is about 10 times more expensive than 1 GB of a regular disk?

What is SSD-boost or flashcache?

In general, there is a hybrid system. When using a bundle of SSD + HDD. At the same time, all data is stored on traditional large disks. There is special software that configures these disks into a special tricky array, where the SSD acts as a cache for any data that is written or read. In such an array, we have a small SSD, say 120 GB, followed by a large HDD, 2 Tb. Such a bundle gives the read / write speed of an SSD, but the volume is the same as that of an HDD. That's it. At the same time, the hoster can calmly tell you that everything is on the SSD. Honest hosters call it SSD-boost. This does not negatively affect the work of sites.

I've tested disk speeds with dozens of different hosting providers. You will be surprised, but only 1 out of 5 hosters provide an "honest" SSD.

I capture such things with screenshots.

Tests of fake SSDs of some hosters

Hoster # 1

Here we see only 30 MB / s for writing. This is the normal speed for a normal HDD. But the hoster advertises it as SSD.

Hoster # 2

A similar picture. But the reading speed is already a little better. Perhaps this is the case with flashcache, but very overloaded. And most likely just a raid array from ordinary HDDs. You can collect them in such a way that read performance increases by 1.5-2 times.

Hoster # 3

Favorite hoster by many. Shows generally wild results. Not only is the HDD, it is also overloaded with disk calls.

Hoster # 4

It's a really funny story here. Did the client audit the server, there were complaints about the brakes. Let me check the disc, I think.

Here's a picture. I write to the client this way and that - the hoster brazenly deceives you. The client runs to the support - it turns out really. The client "forgot" to turn on the SSD when switching from one tariff to another, do you understand? We switch it over, test it again and see how a real SSD appeared.

Real SSD benchmarks

Now, in order to understand the difference, I will show you screenshots of the tests of the actual SSD.

This is how it looks. Write speed over 100 Mb / s should be. This is the minimum for an SSD. This is a test from my work laptop, which I am currently writing this post on. It has the cheapest 120 Gb SSD. As you can see, its operating speed is 4-5 times faster than that of a traditional disk.

And here is the hoster's test that provides a real SSD.

This is definitely a real SSD here. This is how it should be. Perhaps a boost is configured, but it's still an SSD and you can live with this hoster.

How to make a disk speed test at a hoster?

I use the dd utility for this. Any linux has it. But you should handle it carefully, otherwise there is a risk of spoiling the entire server, all the data on it. As this utility writes raw data to any device or file that you point to it.

So, for the write test, you should take a stream of zeros from the special device / dev / zero and send it to a file on the tested disk. Any arbitrary file. For example, to the temporary files folder /tmp/test.img

Dd if = / dev / zero of = / tmp / test.img bs = 1M count = 1024 oflag = dsync

This command will create a 1 GB file and display the write speed.

You can immediately check the reading speed, only here the if option should point to the created file, and of somewhere in the void. In Linux there is such a device / dev / null, we will send to it:

Dd if = / tmp / test.img of = / dev / null bs = 1M count = 1024

But before that, you need to reset the disk cache, otherwise the file will be read in a second, and you will get the read speed in Gb / s. This is done with the following command:

Sysctl vm.drop_caches = 3

Then we carry out the reading test with the second command.

Well, at the end, you need to delete the test file so that it does not take up space:

Rm -f /tmp/test.img

This will only work on a dedicated server or VPS. Moreover, not on every VPS. Since they also differ in virtualization technology. Many hosters do not provide full-fledged virtualization (KVM, XEN) but containers (openVZ). There is no access to the kernel parameters, which means that you will not be able to reset the cache. Have to read and write in different files, or wait a few hours before the read test until the disk cache is overwritten with other data. It is also quite difficult to check the speed on shared hosting, since you do not have there root access... But the dd utility is usually available to any system user, so you can check on it with SSH access.