In the last article of the site, we considered a utility that informs about all the data on the hard disk of a computer. In this article, we will get acquainted with a related utility (the programs have the same developer) - Crystaldiskmark. It is designed to measure performance. hard drives.
1. About CrystalDiskMark
Windows program Crystaldiskmark It can measure the average speed of reading and writing data from ordinary hard drives with magnetic plates, both external and connected via USB, SSD-drives and flash drives. Unlike many analog programs, CrystalDiskMark allows you to determine the speed of reading and writing on individual disk partitions.
Random access operations
In the left pane, in the "Transmission" section, specify the duration of the test, which should take at least 30 seconds. The reasons for this are manifolds: incorrect wiring, poorly optimized network settings, old router, or faulty drivers. In general, you should start by updating the firmware of your router or switches to solve the problem. Both can be overclocked with the included tool. Read more in this news video.
And this is associated with significant performance losses. Therefore, make sure the port is on the board. Maybe it's time to upgrade motherboard? Now the disk should be formatted without a blocking section with the correct alignment. In addition to the performance values, the correct green alignment is displayed in the upper left field.
CrystalDiskMark - the program is free, multilingual, has no other functionality than testing the performance of hard drives.
You can download CrystalDiskMark on the developer's site. The program is presented in a regular version that requires installation, and a portable version. CrystalDiskMark Shizuku Edition is a Japanese anime-style version of the program.
Disabling Unnecessary Services
The disadvantage is that services are active that would otherwise be disabled, such as defragmentation. Continuous monitoring of the system causes many entries on the hard disk. A storage environment is not only faster and more resistant to performance failure.
Disable recovery
The operating system is optimized for the highest possible speed, comfort and security. This is why data is often written to the hard drive in the background. These “services” should be turned off whenever possible. In the so-called shadow copy, the system saves old versions of files when the service is active, and this is always when you do not close it. The service itself, running in the background, is a great thing.
If CrystalDiskMark is selected in the usual version that requires installation, it is necessary to carefully monitor the installation process, so as not to install unnecessary software in the appendage in the system along the way.
2. Testing hard drives
After starting the program, we will see a small window in the form of a table of values. The extreme cell of the line at the top provides for the selection of a specific partition of the disk or a connected device (flash drive, USB-HDD, USB-SSD).
There is only one problem: auto recovery constantly writes data to the hard drive. And, unfortunately, you cannot move the location of this data to another drive, as is possible with the server option operating system. Data can only be restored to the same drive for which it was also collected. Unfortunately, system restore by restore point works fully if you activated it for system hard drive.
Important: stop system recovery
In the dialog box, activate the third button "Disable computer protection." For other hard disks in the system, the recovery function previous versions file is still available. This means that you can export saved versions of files from a shadow copy with a simple click of the mouse.
Turn off poll
However, make sure the service is disabled. You can completely disable the defragmenter by selecting the “Delete all drives” check box, or you can configure the scheduler so that mechanical hard disks regularly defragmented.
The cells to the left are the read and write cycles of the reference file with a certain size, which the program will temporarily place on the tested disk partition or device. The number of cycles of 5 with a file size of 1000 MB, set in the program by default, can be left for ordinary hard disks HDD.
Start the index service as follows. Check this and correct if necessary. Select the lower option to enable secondary nodes. However, this snapshot can only be used if you are an administrator. Related articles on this topic can be found here.
One of the key elements of our computers is the hard drives, which are just as important as the processor, the hard drive is the main memory and the memory block, and where we save everything, where the operating system is installed and where we store all our documents.
In order not to wear out the SSD drive once again, in case of testing it is recommended to reduce the number of cycles to 3 with a file size of 100 MB.
We select the tested disk partition or the USB device to be connected and start the process of measuring the speed of reading and writing data with the " All».
A good hard drive is fundamental to the good functioning of the equipment, as it is also such. When we talk about the proper operation and performance of a hard disk, we must refer to its read and write speeds.
Solid State Drives Compared to Mechanical Drives
Both the speed of access to the disk and the speed of writing and reading far exceed the speed of a mechanical hard disk. As a result, we find that the first has fallen in price, and the second has increased. This command is almost completely unknown, however it is extremely useful, and we do not need to install any additional program. To measure the speed, we only need to enter the following into the terminal.
« All"- as the name implies, this is the launch of all the read and write data tests below. They can also be launched individually by the corresponding button:
- « Seq»- testing of sequential read and write data is launched;
- « 512K"- testing of random reading and writing of blocks starts, the size of which is 512 Kb;
- « 4K"- testing of random reading and writing of blocks starts, the size of which is 4 KB with a queue depth of 1;
- « 4K QD32»- testing of random reading and writing of blocks starts, the size of which is 4 Kb at a queue depth of 32.
Of all these individual tests, by and large, only “ Seq". It is the sequential measurement of reading and writing data that is considered an indicative parameter, since it is precisely its values \u200b\u200bthat manufacturers indicate in the characteristics of information carriers. And if the purpose of measuring the performance of a new hard drive or flash drive is to check the manufacturer or seller, didn’t it lie, promising better speed performance, you can run only testing " Seq».
During this recording, it will be logically counted, and after this writing, the final speeds are returned. So in a simple way we will know the write speed of our disk, as well as its quality. Surely you have ever wondered how to find out the speed of reading and writing to a hard disk. It is important to know all this information, especially in order to get through the box or replace these components.
How to find out the read and write speed of a hard disk
Software that is free and easy will let you know. necessary information. Open the program and select the device you want to test from the drop-down list.
- Select a test type.
- Run the test by clicking “Start”.
After a short test in the CrystalDiskMark table, we will see the average speed of the hard drive - in the cells of the “ Read"The speed of reading data, and in the cells of the column" Write", Respectively, the speed of their recording.
As you can see in the previous image, a simple and practical interface that returns the requested information. Best of all, it works quickly and easily, you won’t need too much knowledge to successfully interpret the results. You can download the program from this link. Once you are done with this program, you just need to run it and click on the “Start” button, which you will see in the previous image. You will quickly notice that the application interface is very easy to use, you start the application, and you give a start to the test, and you wait for it to finish and show the results.
3. Other program functionality
CrystalDiskMark allows you to copy test results to a text format. Saved in text file Testing data can then be used for analysis and comparison.
CrystalDiskMark provides the ability to zoom in on its window, as well as change the color of the interface.
No more! But how does the program work? To give you an idea of \u200b\u200bhow you measure the speed of your hard drive, which makes the program temporarily create large blocks of data that are written to the hard drive, and then read to know how the hard drive works.
For the price that we can currently find, this is a winning solution and does not require significant effort or unpaid payments. At least for improvement we get in return. For example, in a laptop with more than seven years and which we left as new with.
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Greetings!
The speed of work and the performance of everything depends on the performance of the disk (HDD, SSD) personal computer generally! However, to my surprise, quite a large number of users do not attach due importance to this aspect. And this despite the fact that the loading speed of the operating system, launching programs, copying files and data from the disk and back, etc. directly depends on the data carrier. In other words, a fairly large number of typical operations on a PC are tied to a memory subsystem.
This leads to the fact that equipment falls do not pose a risk to their own data. To complete the test, we did the same, but with the current team dedicated to the game. And we started to play and work. The speed comparison between the two drives is based on the speed specifications of each of them. Let us also not forget other important long-term values, such as consumption consumption.
Differences in launching applications, playing or copying files
To test this, we went through a series of tests on two disks, which we already met in our tests on hardware components. The data provided by performance measurement programs guide us, but do not complete the experience that we would like to pass through this test.
Now either traditional HDDs are installed in computers and laptops (hard disk drive - hDD), or the recent trend is SSD (solid-state drive). Often SSD drives are significantly faster than classic read / write speeds HDD drives. For example, Windows 10 starts in 6..7 seconds, compared to 50 seconds of boot from a regular HDD - as you can see, the difference is very significant!
There are also differences during the startup of the operating system. In this case, five tests consist of. The hardware components of our computer can say a lot about computer performance. If you are considering changing computers or planning some kind of hardware change because your computer is slow, perhaps the first thing you need to know is the state of your hard drive. Sometimes the speed that brings us is not all we would like, or its condition is not optimal without any symptoms in this regard.
This material will be devoted to methods of checking the speed and performance of the installed HDD or SSD drive.
CrystalDiskMark Overview
Quite a popular utility for measuring and testing the speed of an HDD or SSD drive. It works fine in Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8.1, 10), it is free and supports the Russian language interface. Official website of the program: http://crystalmark.info/
Applications to know the status and speed of your hard drive
Therefore, we are going to show several tools with which you can check the status of our disk and, thus, be able to know first hand if the time has come, and we must change it.
Submit for a speed test
Other options for defining hard state drive. In addition, it has several additional tools for controlling other aspects, such as disk temperature, among others.Day after day, we usually store all kinds of data on hard drives. Over the years, this data has been part of us, and in many cases the files are indispensable. Despite the importance reserve copy Of this data, there are other elements that should be considered if we want to avoid data loss in the event of a failure, problem or error, for example, periodically check the health status of our hard drives.
To test an HDD or SSD in CrystalDiskMark, do the following:
1) Make a selection of write / read cycles. By default, this number is 5 That is the best option.
2) Then you need to select the size of the file recorded during the test. 1 GiB (1 Gigabyte) will be optimal.
Choosing a program to test
The first thing to do is download this application from your main web page. The application is completely free and can be downloaded in two different ways. Installer: it takes something less and allows us to install the application on the system, however it carries advertisements.
- Portable: it takes up more space but does not require installation.
- This publication is not public.
3) Finally, you must select the partition that will be used to test the drive. If you have several physical disks installed, select the partition that is located on the disk of interest to you. In the example, the installed hard disk is one and the partition is selected accordingly C: \\.
4) To start the test, click on the green button. All. By the way, in the vast majority of cases, the result is what is in the line SeqQ32T1 - linear read / write speed. You can start testing only linear read / write speed by clicking the corresponding button.
HD Tune Review
Among the information that the program shows us, we can highlight. We must bear in mind that high temperatures can damage the device, so it is recommended that you keep them as low as possible.
- It averages all values \u200b\u200band tells us what state the disk is in.
- Temperature.
- He shows us the temperature of the disk.
- General information about the device.
Test results will be displayed in the columns:
Read - a parameter showing the speed of reading data from the test disk.
Write - a similar parameter, but showing the speed of writing to the tested hard drive.
On the Kingston UV300 SSD tested in the example, the linear read speed was 546 MB / s - which is a very worthy result. In general, for the best representatives of SSD disks, this parameter varies around 500 .. 580 MB / s, taking into account the connection to the SATA3 connector on the motherboard.
If any of the circles is displayed in red, this is a sign that the disk will work at any time, so we should remove all information from it as soon as possible. Do you know or use other similar applications? Name: Monti - Origin: Mexico.
Question or comment by visitor. What is hard speed drive? The transfer speed, whether it is writing or reading on the hard disk, depends on the type of hard disk, the rotation speed and the interface used to connect it. These speeds are the best or, in other words, the maximum speeds that these technologies can transmit.
If the speed of your SSD drive is significantly lower than the manufacturer’s one, then it makes sense to check whether it is connected to SATA3.
How to determine the version and mode of operation of the SATA port
CrystalDiskMark prudently created yet another diagnostic utility - CrystalDiskInfo. Her task is to display S.M.A.R.T information on the status of the disk, its temperature regime and other parameters.
In general, a fairly convenient and intuitive utility that should be in service with users who need to control the state of the disk (its health) in order to avoid data loss due to its possible breakdown.
After starting the utility, look at the information that is displayed in the line “ Transmission mode»:
SATA / 600 - means that the drive operates in SATA3 mode with a maximum throughput of 600 MB / s.
SATA / 300 - this parameter means that the drive operates in SATA2 mode with a maximum throughput of 300 MB / s.
It may still be highlighted SATA / 150 (150MB / s) - this is the first version of the SATA standard and it is considered very outdated and does not meet modern requirements for the bandwidth of connected media.
While the classic HDD is enough SATA2 (300MB / s), then the SSD must be connected to the port SATA3otherwise, he will not be able to reveal his full speed potential.
Overview of AS SSD Benchmark
I present to your attention another noteworthy utility whose task is to test the speed of the computer installed or laptop HDD or SSD drive. With it, you can just as easily find out the speed characteristics of a connected drive.
The utility is free, does not need to be installed and works in the Windows environment. Official website of the program: http://www.alex-is.de/
Management is carried out in a similar manner to CrystalDiskMark. The linear read speed is displayed here in the graph. Seq.
HD Tune Review
This review is completed by the HD Tune utility. The capabilities of this program are not limited to testing the read / write speed. Among other things, it also allows you to monitor the health of the hard disk, its technical parameters and even scan the surface of the disk for errors.
If we focus on the capabilities of speed testing, here we can note the following:
- the ability to separately set write or read testing
- convenient visual graph of write / read speed during testing
- the ability to see peak speed and access time
The program runs in a Windows environment and provides convenient tools for monitoring and testing connected media.
Official website of the program: http://www.hdtune.com/
Brief summary
The speed of the connected media directly affects the overall performance of the computer or laptop. Do not neglect the control of speed characteristics, because the general comfort of working with a computer depends on this.
Now you know how to check the speed of the connected media, as well as the possible nuances of its connection, on which the throughput of the connected HDD or SSD ultimately depends.
