Hitachi’s Deskstar 7K500 hard drive

Today, hard drives are measured in hundreds of gigabytes. Soon it may be terabytes, and we’ll look back on the gigabyte wondering how we ever got along with so little storage. We’re really halfway there already. Hitachi’s Deskstar 7K500, currently the largest desktop hard drive on the market, offers an awe-inspiring half-terabyte of storage. 500GB in a 3.5″ form factor that was bursting at the seams with just 20MB so many years ago.

Storage would be pretty stagnant if additional gigabytes were all new hard drives had to offer, but there’s more to the Deskstar 7K500 than its copious capacity. The drive also comes equipped with a generous 16MB cache, as well as support for 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates and Native Command Queuing—all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a high-end drive. But does it have enough punch to keep up with the latest from Maxtor, Seagate, and Western Digital? Read on to find out.

Drive specs
The 7K500 is just one of whole wave of new Deskstars to support 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates and Native Command Queuing (NCQ). Here’s how the drive’s specs compare with the Deskstar T7K250, which we reviewed back in May.

Despite its industry-leading 500GB capacity, the 7K500 packs only 100GB per platter. Hitachi uses denser 125GB platters in the T7K250, and those platters would presumably allow the 7K500 to be built with four rather than five disks. Denser platters could also improve the drive’s performance by allowing the drive head to access more data from the same physical area.

Despite its lower areal density, the 7K500’s claimed internal and sustained transfer rates are only marginally slower than those of the T7K250. Areal density can only do so much, and both drives do spin at 7,200 RPM. They also share identical average seek times and rotational latencies.

The 7K500 and T7K250 differ when it comes to cache size, though. Hitachi’s 500GB monster packs an impressive 16MB of cache—double that of the T7K250. 16MB of cache is quickly becoming standard for high-end Serial ATA drives, with the latest drives from Maxtor and Western Digital also making the jump from 8MB. More cache is better, of course, but since manufacturers tune caching algorithms differently, not all 16MB caches will have the same performance characteristics.

As it is with cache, more is also better when it comes to warranties. After a brief flirtation with single-year coverage, hard drive manufacturers are moving back to three-year warranties, and we couldn’t be happier. Well, maybe we could. While the Deskstar 7K500’s three-year warranty is much better than an insulting one-year warranty, it would be nice if Hitachi and other manufacturers matched Seagate’s five-year hard drive warranties—not that longer warranties guarantee lower failure rates, just more replacement coverage.

Test notes
Today we’ll be testing the Deskstar 7K500 against a wide range of Serial ATA hard drives from Maxtor, Seagate, and Western Digital. Not all drives are created equal, though. Differences in external transfer rates, spindle speeds, cache sizes, NCQ support, and capacity can have an impact on performance in certain tests. Keep in mind the following differences as we move through our benchmarks:

The Raptor’s 10,000 RPM spindle speed gives it a big advantage over the 7,200-RPM drives, and while it’s technically an enterprise-class drive, that hasn’t stopped enthusiasts from running Raptors in their personal systems.

Note that both Western Digital drives lack support for Native Command Queuing. The Raptor does support a form of command queuing known as Tagged Command Queuing (TCQ), but host controller and chipset support for TCQ is still pretty thin. Our Intel 955X-based test platform doesn’t support TCQ, either.

Since Seagate makes versions of the 7200.7 with and without NCQ support, our 7200.7 appears as the “Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ” to clarify that it’s the NCQ version of the drive. The Deskstar T7K250, DiamondMax 10, 7200.8 aren’t explicitly labeled as NCQ drives because they’re not available without NCQ support.

Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.

Our test system was powered by OCZ PowerStream power supply units. The PowerStream was one of our Editor’s Choice winners in our latest PSU round-up.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• WorldBench 5.0
• Intel IOMeter v2004.07.30
• Xbit Labs File Copy Test v1.0 beta 13
• TCD Labs HD Tach v3.01
• Far Cry v1.3
• DOOM 3
• Intel iPEAK Storage Performance Toolkit 3.0

The test systems’ Windows desktop was set at 1280×1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.

WorldBench overall performance
WorldBench uses scripting to step through a series of tasks in common Windows applications. It then produces an overall score. WorldBench also spits out individual results for its component application tests, allowing us to compare performance in each. We’ll look at the overall score, and then we’ll show individual application results alongside the results from some of our own application tests.

The Deskstar fares well in WorldBench, trailing only the 10,000-RPM Raptor. Let’s break down WorldBench’s overall score into individual results to see if the 7K500 managed a breakout performance in any of the suite’s tests.

Multimedia editing and encoding

MusicMatch Jukebox

Windows Media Encoder

Adobe Premiere

VideoWave Movie Creator

Scores are very close in WorldBench’s media encoding and editing tests.

Image processing

Adobe Photoshop

ACDSee PowerPack

Performance is pretty consistent in Photoshop, but ACDSee spreads the field a little, with the Deskstar finishing in the middle of the pack.

Multitasking and office applications

Microsoft Office

Mozilla

Mozilla and Windows Media Encoder

WorldBench’s office and multitasking apps don’t seem to prefer one drive over the others, but explore some more intensive multitasking tests in a moment.

Other applications

Winzip

Nero

Winzip and Nero both provide opportunities for the drives to strut their stuff, and the 7K500 turns in a second-place performance in both tests. Not bad for the biggest drive of the bunch.

Boot and load times
To test system boot and game level load times, we busted out our trusty stopwatch.

Ouch. The Deskstar boots into Windows nearly six seconds slower than any of the other drives.

Fortunately, the 7K500 bounces back with quick level load times in Far Cry and DOOM 3. It doesn’t quite catch the Raptor, but the Deskstar does prove faster than all the other 7,200-RPM drives.

File Copy Test
File Copy Test is a pseudo-real-world benchmark that times how long it takes to create, read, and copy files in various test patterns. File copying is tested twice: once with the source and target on the same partition, and once with the target on a separate partition. Scores are presented in MB/s.

The Deskstar takes top honors with File Copy Test’s Windows and Program file creation scripts. Those scripts lean towards a larger number of smaller files, while the MP3, ISO, and Install scripts tend to favor fewer, larger files. Even with the MP3, ISO, and Install test patterns, the 7K500 manages to hold onto third place ahead of the Caviar and Barracuda drives.

Only the Raptor manages to consistently stay ahead of the Deskstar in File Copy Test’s read tests.

Results are more mixed with File Copy Test’s, er, copy tests. The Deskstar spends time in first, second, and even fourth place, but its overall performance is quite good.

iPEAK multitasking
We recently developed a series of disk-intensive multitasking tests to highlight the impact of command queuing on hard drive performance. You can get the low-down on these iPEAK-based tests here. The mean service time of each drive is reported in milliseconds, with lower values representing better performance.

The Deskstar doesn’t fare too well in our dual file copy test.

However, the drive redeems itself with slightly stronger performances in the rest of our tests. Hitachi has a long way to go to catch the DiamondMax 10, though.

iPEAK multitasking – con’t

Maxtor continues to dominate as we move to multitasking tests involving Outlook PST import and export, leaving little opportunity for other drives to shine. The 7K500 performs reasonably well, though.

IOMeter – Transaction rate
IOMeter presents a best-case scenario for command queuing, so the NCQ-less Western Digital drives should have a slight disadvantage here under higher loads.

With only one exception, the 7K500 hobbles through IOMeter at the back of the pack. However, the drive actually performs quite well in the read-dominated web server test, where it ties the Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ as the fastest 7,200-RPM drive.

IOMeter – Response time

Moving to IOMeter response times, the 7K500 continues to trail the rest of the field in all but the web server test pattern.

IOMeter – CPU utilization

IOMeter CPU utilization is low no matter which test pattern we use.

HD Tach
We tested HD Tach with the benchmark’s full variable zone size setting.

The Deskstar is a little slow in HD Tach’s sustained read and write speed tests, falling behind all but the Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ.

However, the drive does have the fastest burst speed of the bunch by a significant margin. To be fair, the Caviar SE16 is the only other drive that supports 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates. The Deskstar still manages to outshine the Caviar by 40MB/s, though.

The 7K500 also fares rather well in HD Tach’s random access time test, where it posts a lower access time than the other 7,200-RPM drives.

HD Tach’s margin for error in the CPU utilization test is +/- 2%, so all the drives are pretty much even.

Noise levels
Noise levels were measured with an Extech 407727 Digital Sound Level meter 1″ from the side of the drives at idle and under an HD Tach seek load. Drives were run with the PCB facing up.

The Deskstar’s idle noise levels leave something to be desired, but the drive is nearly the quietest of the bunch under a seek load.

Power consumption
Power consumption was measured for the entire system, sans monitor, at the outlet. I used the same idle and load environments as the noise level tests.

Unsurprisingly, the 7K500’s power consumption is slightly higher than the other drives. It does have to spin the weight of five platters, after all.

Conclusions
As the only 500GB hard drive currently available on the market, the Deskstar 7K500 is really without peers. Its closest competition is 100GB behind, and some manufacturers are stuck with drives in the 300GB range. Exclusivity carries a price, though. With a $320 street price, the 7K500 has a higher cost per GB than lower capacity drives. However, the 7K500’s higher density can be worth the premium for systems where storage capacity is limited by available internal drive bays, Serial ATA ports, or both. Those seeking quieter systems should also prefer higher density drives, since the additive properties of noise levels make packing a system with multiple drives less desirable.

And remember, the Deskstar 7K500 is more than just 500GB of storage capacity. It also has everything one should expect from a high-end drive, including support for 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates and Native Command Queuing, a hefty 16MB cache, and a three-year warranty. None of those features go above and beyond the call of duty, but they don’t disappoint, either. Neither does the 7K500’s performance, for the most part. The Deskstar scores well in desktop application benchmarks and file copy tests, but slow boot times and a poor showing in three of four IOMeter test patterns make it difficult to recommend the drive across the board.

Poor performance with IOMeter’s file server, workstation, and database access patterns suggests that the Deskstar is inappropriate for multi-user environments with heavy read and write demands. However, the drive’s surprisingly strong showing in the read-dominated web server test pattern shows that the 7K500 can most certainly keep up in select server environments. And there’s no doubt that the 7K500 can keep up on the desktop, at least once you get the system booted. That makes it easy to recommend the Deskstar to storage-hungry desktop and home theater PC users looking to add capacity one half-terabyte at a time.