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    Unable to align WD5000BEKT, mediocre performance

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by bladteth, Apr 5, 2011.

  1. bladteth

    bladteth Notebook Geek

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    Hi,

    I have a problem with WD5000BEKT-60KA9 (Scorpio Black 500GB). The drive was installed in secondary bay in Dell Vostro 1700, initialized, partitioned and formatted under Windows XP. After that I tried to use Acronis WD Align, but it reported the drive as 'Not a Western Digital Advanced Format Disk" and would not proceed with alignment. It also reported sector size as 512B, not 4kB as it should be. Same problem with Paragon. Read speeds for large files, access times and I/O performance seem to be on par with other benchmarks, but write speeds, particularly small files are badly affected. Here is ATTO graph obtained in XP:

    [​IMG]

    It is even worse in Windows 7:

    [​IMG]

    Also, I noticed that burst rate in HD Tune is only 80MB/s for read/write. After partitioning and formatting the drive under Windows 7, Acronis still claims the drive is not AF, but now reports all partitions as optimally aligned. However, this does not have any bearing on performance in either OS.

    What should I do to remedy this problem? I have XP at home and access to 7, if necessary.

    Cheers,
    bladteth
     
    bladteth, Apr 5, 2011
    #1
  2. TomJG90

    TomJG90 Notebook Evangelist

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    I would just wipe the drive.. Format it over 3 times or so. Also update your Intel SATA drivers... with newest RST drivers. That should improve your performance.
     
    TomJG90, Apr 5, 2011
    #2
  3. miner

    miner Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Isnt the BEKT the regular version while the BPKT's are the advanced format version?
     
    miner, Apr 5, 2011
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  4. miro_gt

    miro_gt Notebook Deity

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    yes, BEKT is with the 512 bites per sector.

    I dont see what the OP is complaining as those are pretty average graphs for that drive, i.e. fast for laptop HDD :)

    I have 3 drives like those as well (cough .. too lazy to put in the laptop ... cough)
     
    miro_gt, Apr 5, 2011
    #4
  5. bladteth

    bladteth Notebook Geek

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    I have Intel ICH8M non-RAID chipset in my Vostro 1700, so I guess there is no advantage in installing RST drivers. Is this correct?
     
    bladteth, Apr 6, 2011
    #5
  6. bladteth

    bladteth Notebook Geek

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    Because I want ultimate performance, not just average ;-)

    I had Legit Reviews graph in mind:

    WD Scorpio Black 500GB Notebook Hard Drive Review - ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46 - Legit Reviews

    As you can see, up to 32kB, the performance is 50-70% better. Any idea why? Also, their Scorpio reaches maximum potential at 32kB, while mine at 128kB.

    Thanks for sector size clarification.
     
    bladteth, Apr 6, 2011
    #6
  7. Judicator

    Judicator Judged and found wanting.

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    Part of the difference will be the test system. They use a desktop rig to test their drives, and also don't use the test drive as a boot drive, so drives will usually get higher numbers (since notebook systems are "crippled" compared to desktop).
     
    Judicator, Apr 6, 2011
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  8. chocobanana

    chocobanana Notebook Enthusiast

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    the WD5000BEKT is not an Advanced Format drive, hence why got that feedback from ATTO.
     
    chocobanana, Apr 6, 2011
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  9. GP-SE

    GP-SE Notebook Consultant

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    WD5000BEKT is NOT Advance Format, so there is no need to aligh
    BPKT is advance format
     
    GP-SE, Apr 6, 2011
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  10. miro_gt

    miro_gt Notebook Deity

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    [​IMG]

    this ^ is mine, I put it in last night, and it is my OS drive. Newest firmwere, as the drive has been manufactured Feb 20th, 2011.

    For HDTune - go to Optioins, Benchmark, change block size to 128kb ... and run the test again :)

    I know of a way that somebody improved his HDDs 4k transfer rates. I'll test it soon and if I find some improvements I'll let you know, though you must be running an additional program for that.
     
    miro_gt, Apr 6, 2011
    #10
  11. TomJG90

    TomJG90 Notebook Evangelist

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    Those drivers are still better than standard microsoft ones. I used to have a Single HDD too and still used RST drivers. I suggest you try that. There's no harm in doing so. Thoe drivers are superior than microsoft's ones anytime.
     
    TomJG90, Apr 9, 2011
    #11