virus shield, firewall, torrents, instant messengers etc) without any major slowdowns.įor an operating system boot drive, 4K random read speeds are the most important, followed by 4K random write speed.įor a mass storage drive (e.g. A hard drive with higher 4K numbers will able to multi-task better, so your operating system will be more responsive and you can run more background programs (e.g. High sequential read speeds will also shorten the loading time for large programs such as modern computer games and video editing software.ĤK random read/write - measures how fast your hard drive is able to access small files that are randomly scattered across it. installing programs, copying videos, programs, photo albums or music libraries from one hard drive to another). Sequential read/write - measures the speed of your hard drive when it comes to the transfer of large files (e.g. Seq is short for sequential (read/write speeds), and 4K refers to random (read/write speeds).

The numbers that will matter to most people are the ones in the 'Seq' and '4K' row (outlined in red above). Simple to use with a clean interface - Easy-to-understand benchmark results without excessive technical details (see screenshot below):.Works like a charm with almost everything - Hard disk drives, solid state drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives and even memory cards.While they are all dependable hard drive benchmark tools, we recommend CrystalDiskMark over the others for the following reasons:

Let's begin by introducing you to the big names in hard drive speed test software: Atto Disk Benchmark, CrystalDiskMark and HD Tune. How to Run a SSD Benchmark or HDD Benchmark

In that case, the only sure-fire method to determine your real-world hard disk speed is to put it through a reliable hard drive performance test.Īnd once you have the benchmark results, we'll point out what are the numbers to look for and what they mean in plain English. speeds attained under unrealistic scenarios). Ask any techie and chances are they will tell you that hard disk speeds given by manufacturers are often overstated or misleading (e.g.

Disk mark ssd