HD Tune Pro
HD Tune is a Hard Disk utility which has the following functions:
Benchmark: measures the performance
Info: shows detailed information
Health: checks the health status by using SMART
Error Scan: scans the surface for errors
HD Tune Pro gives us accurate read, write and access time results and for the last couple of years has been gaining popularity amongst reviewers. It is now considered a must have application for storage device testing.
A Note from The Author: The industry accepted standard for testing HDD/SSDs in HD Tune Pro is with a (default) 64MB block size. Most end users who test with HD Tune at home don't realize there is an option to change the block size; even fewer understand what it does to performance.
A review of the Crucial m4 was published days ago that displayed read speeds in this test well over 500MB/s. We feel this was an inaccurate result. We don't take issue with performing the test differently than what is considered the standard; we take issue with the author not indicating that the test was performed outside of what is considered the standard.
TweakTown goes to great lengths to ensure all products are tested in a uniform manner using methods available to our readers. It troubles us that the new trend in professional reviews is akin to shock jock radio tactics and tests used to determine a products value without documenting the perimeters in which a test in conducted. I say trend since others are now using performance traces without releasing their trace files.
The OCZ Vertex 3 has an impressive lead over the Crucial m4 in ATTO and claimed read / write performance, but in sustained reads across the drive the Crucial m4 outperforms the Vertex 3. The Crucial m4 delivers very tight minimum to maximum speeds, some of the best we've seen to date.
The new Marvell controller used in the Crucial M4 is at a disadvantage to the cacheless SandForce SF-2200 controlled Vertex 3 out of the box. Here we see more than a 100MB/s difference between the two in average write speed across the drive.