With peak sequential read/write speeds of 140 and averages of 120 MB/s the 3TB WD Red is around 25% slower than the group leaders. If the Red is used in a NAS (Network Attached Storage), that won't make much difference because the vast majority of home networks still operate at Fast Ethernet (~10 MB/s), even users with faster Gigabit (~100 MB/s) networks will be limited by their network bandwidth before the drive. I could assume that any of our drives are for use in a NAS but that of course doesn't excuse sub-par performance because they could equally be used in a desktop. It's true that the power consumption (4.4W) on the Red is lower than average (6W) but the performance hit isn't justified. Even assuming continuous usage, those extra couple of watts for something like the Seagate Baracuda 7200.14 amount to a few pounds a year at most. At £133 this dive is both overpriced and offers sub-optimal performance. [Feb '14HDrivePro]
The Seagate Desktop SSHD is a Solid State Hard Drive (SSHD). The 8GBs of MLC NAND flash built into this model help facilitate better performance than a purely mechanical drive. Peak sequential read/write speeds are above average at 190 MB/s. The 2TB SSHD has consistently demonstrated class leading 4k random write speeds in the region of 5.0 MB/s. 4K read speeds are in the region of 0.7-0.9 MB/s which is well above average, but not record breaking. Overall the performance increases attributable to the NAND flash are very noticeable in the area of small file 4K performance where the SSHD dominates the competition. In terms of sequential speeds, the Seagate also offers better average sequential performance than most mechanical 2TB hard drives. From a value for money perspective, the 2TB SSHD is well above average, it has a brilliant 4k performance profile, strong sequential speeds and only a slightly above average price. [Dec '13HDrivePro]
We calculate effective speed which measures performance for typical consumers. Effective speed is adjusted by current cost per GB to yield value for money. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top HDDs. [HDrivePro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.