Drive performance

[saggy]

Hiya there

Just out of interest what software do folk here use to test a drives performance?
I have a laptop for repair and I suspect the drive is at fault with very slow access times (if thats the right way to word it) and im ideally after a graph of the performance vs a new drive.
Theres a little more to it than that but if anyone has any names fell free to throw them in the hat for me

Cheers

[loki]

You could try booting to MHDD & running a scan

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

Manual http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02- ... al.en.html

[saggy]

Cheers Loki
Ill pick it up later and have a nose at the offending drive

[saggy]

Off topic - UltraDMA CRC Error Count? This relates to a bad cable (afaik) but what is it actually counting? Can it be described as how many times data has been sent to the drive but is bad?
What actually happens to this data? Is it sent again untill it passes this check?

[Vulcan]

Off topic - UltraDMA CRC Error Count? This relates to a bad cable (afaik)

There are multiple possible causes - cable problems are one of those possible causes. Typically that SMART counter can only increment (unless you use techniques to directly manipulate the SMART data). Therefore you need to look for new changes in that value, to see if there is an ongoing current problem, or just a historical one

but what is it actually counting? Can it be described as how many times data has been sent to the drive but is bad?

For SATA, it typically means the CRC check on a received frame failed.

What actually happens to this data? Is it sent again untill it passes this check?

Not necesarily "until it passes this check" (there can be other limits), but there will usually be a number of host retries.