Read/Write Throughput: h2benchw 3.6

The numbers here confirm what we’ve already seen in the transfer diagrams: both the Hitachi Ultrastar 15K450 and the Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 are awesome performers, but the Cheetah 15K.6 is really a beast. The 174.6 MB/s maximum read throughput is a number that isn’t really in range for existing flash SSD products, although no hard drive can match the I/O performance of flash-based drives. Still, if you are looking for drive solutions to power applications that require huge and constant streams of data then you now have two new options, which both deliver impressive data rates.

While Hitachi’s write performance isn’t at the same maximum level we measured for reads, Seagate stays well on top of things. The write performance equals the read numbers, which results in the drive being even more impressive when compared to its competitors.