Performance - Internal Storage Mode

The performance of an internal storage device is dependent on the performance characteristics of the device as well as the file system being used. In order to isolate the effects of the latter, we first benchmarked the raw drives using HD Tune Pro 5.70. It was then formatted in NTFS and subject to our standard direct-attached benchmark suite.

Raw Drive Performance

HD Tune Pro allows us to run a variety of tests to determine transfer rates and IOPS for various artificial workloads. In addition, it also allows us to visualize how the performance varies as the tracking head moves from the outer parts of the platter towards the center (i.e, transfer rates as a function of the block address).

Empty drives are bound to perform very well, but, depending on the location of the data in the drive, we find that access rates can go as low as 117 MBps for sequential workloads (compared to the 112 MBps of the 12TB drive from last year). Write access times are a bit unpredictable due to the multi-segmented cache.

Random accesses are never the strong points of hard drives, and we see that the BarraCuda Pro delivers around 69 IOPS for 4K random reads and 222 IOPS for 4K random writes. The random read performance is very similar to the performance of the 12TB version from last year, while the random write performance receives a boost up from 191 IOPS.

The extra tests help in putting some numbers to sequential accesses targeting different areas of the drive. It also provides some interesting numbers relevant to various random access workloads.

DAS Benchmarks

Consumers opting for drives such as the 12TB Seagate BarraCuda Pro typically need high-capacity local storage for holding and editing / processing large-sized multimedia files. Prior to taking a look at the real-life benchmarks, we first check what CrystalDiskMark has to report for the drive. The numbers are in the same ballpark as the 12TB version from last year.

In order to tackle the real-life use-case of transferring large amounts of data back and forth from the drive, we created three test folders with the following characteristics:

  • Photos: 15.6 GB collection of 4320 photos (RAW as well as JPEGs) in 61 sub-folders
  • Videos: 16.1 GB collection of 244 videos (MP4 as well as MOVs) in 6 sub-folders
  • BR: 10.7 GB Blu-ray folder structure of the IDT Benchmark Blu-ray (the same that we use in our robocopy tests for NAS systems)
Seagate BarraCuda Pro 14TB robocopy Benchmarks (MBps)
  Write Bandwidth Read Bandwidth
Photos 197.81 206.81
Videos 219.51 206.99
Blu-ray Folder 222.00 212.36

These numbers are better than the ones we obtained for the 10TB version from 2016, but, fall a little short of the performance of the 12TB drive from last year.

While processing our DAS suite, we also recorded the instantaneous transfer rates and temperature of the drive. Compared to typical disk drives, the write transfers show higher instantaneous speeds due to a combination of the firmware and the 256 MB cache inside the drive. However, sustained write rates are comparable to other high-capacity drives when the cache is exhausted. The temperature of the unit at the end of the transfers (more than 250GB of traffic) rose by less than 4C, pointing to the power-efficiency of the platform.

For the use-case involving editing of multimedia files directly off the disk, we take advantage of PCMark 8's storage benchmark. The storage workload is a good example of a user workload, involving games as well as multimedia editing applications. The command line version allows us to cherry-pick storage traces to run on a target drive. We chose the following traces.

  • Adobe Photoshop (Light)
  • Adobe Photoshop (Heavy)
  • Adobe After Effects
  • Adobe Illustrator

Usually, PCMark 8 reports time to complete the trace, but the detailed log report has the read and write bandwidth figures which we present in our performance graphs. Note that the bandwidth number reported in the results don't involve idle time compression. Results might appear low, but that is part of the workload characteristic.

Seagate BarraCuda Pro 14TB PCMark8 Storage Benchmarks (MBps)
  Write Bandwidth Read Bandwidth
Adobe Photoshop (Light) 248.16 9.01
Adobe Photoshop (Heavy) 233.95 11.03
Adobe After Effects 89.93 8.73
Adobe Illustrator 202.41 8.47

Compared to the results from the 12TB drive last year, we find that the read workloads fare very similarly, but, the write workloads have a slight edge.

Introduction Performance - Direct Attached Storage Mode
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  • DanNeely - Tuesday, September 11, 2018 - link

    It depends on the type of the ad. There are both pay for display and pay for click ads.
  • Digitalclips - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link

    I wonder if the advertisers are also in receipt of web page stats, not just actual clicks. Even if you don't click we see many of the ads. People don't click on billboards at the side if interstates either.
  • medivh - Monday, January 20, 2020 - link

    I have a pihole. I didn't even realize this site had ads at all.
  • Ryan Smith - Monday, September 10, 2018 - link

    "How do I turn off video autoplay on anandtech.com please?"

    Unfortunately our publisher is not enabling that option. Sorry.
  • Devo2007 - Monday, September 10, 2018 - link

    That's going to either drive people away from the site or increase the use of ad blockers; neither of which is beneficial.
  • 29a - Monday, September 10, 2018 - link

    Fortunately Ublock Origin does enable that option.
  • PeachNCream - Tuesday, September 11, 2018 - link

    Thanks for at least looking into it Ryan. We know the ad content is a necessity for keeping the site up and running. Videos with automatic playback are just incredibly frustrating.
  • maco - Wednesday, September 12, 2018 - link

    I’m close to removing Anandtech from my ad blocker’s whitelist because the video is so intrusive.
  • 29a - Monday, September 10, 2018 - link

    I 2nd using UBlock Origin to block the videos.
  • _Rain - Saturday, September 22, 2018 - link

    Drives of this class usually fairly quiet, because the platter dont push speed to extreme limits.

    Barracuda Pro is designed to be integrated in a PC or workstation in single, non-RAID configuration with medium workloads. Exos is high end, server grade HDDs, designed for maximum performance in highest workloads in it's class, 24/7 operation in RAID setup. There is also huge difference in endurance between those two.

    Factory output capacity of 10/12/14TB HDDs is around 10-15 pcs per day, so the price reflects higher production costs

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