• How to check the speed of a Windows 8.1 hard drive. Ways to check hard drive speed

    But there is a direct dependence on the performance and speed of the entire computer. The speed of loading the OS, launching programs, copying files, exchanging data, and more depends on it.

    The hard drive speed test with this utility is performed in this order.

    • In the program window, select the number of write and read cycles. 5 is optimal.
    • Specify the file size, 1 GIB is recommended.
    • Select your hard drive letter (C:).

    Setting up CrystalDiskMark

    • Click the "All" button to begin testing.

    The program will show the speed of the hard drive - reading information, it will be in column 1 - Read. In the second column you will see the write speed to the hard drive. For SSD optimal is considered from 400 Mb/s if connected via SATA3.

    To save the performance test results, take a screenshot or select “Copy test results” in the “Edit” menu; a text report will be automatically created.

    AS SSD Benchmark

    An excellent utility that allows you to easily and quickly test your hard drive. There is no need to install the utility. It should be used according to the same algorithm as in the utility described above.

    A program that performs a hard drive test. Has free version and paid (Pro). Paid version without registration has a demo period of 15 days.

    • Launch the program.
    • Go to the “Benchmark” tab, select the mode in which the test will be performed: “Write” or “Read”.

    • If your computer has several hard drives, indicate the one you need to check.
    • Click "Start" to start the scan.

    After completing the test, the program will show the results in numbers and graphs. You will learn the following data transfer rates:

    • Minimum - the smallest;
    • Maximum - the largest (usually this is what manufacturers say);
    • RateAverage - average;
    • BurstRate - peak (often given as real speed, but under normal conditions this is not always achieved);
    • CPUUsage - loading central processor during testing.

    After running the test and learning the results, you will probably wonder how to increase the speed of data exchange with the disk. After all, if the speed of data exchange with the disk decreases, and there can be many reasons for this, you need to make the computer act faster. There are several ways to speed up the performance of the storage device.

    Because now computer technology are being improved every day, I am of the opinion that the user simply must know or at least be able to determine the parameters of the hardware installed on his device. Among these parameters there is also speed work hard disk. To clarify it, there are many programs, some of which I will introduce you to.

    Hard drive speed test programs

    To check the speed in this program, in the Drive field you need to select the drive you need. This can be either the entire hard drive or individual parts of it. logical partitions. In this case, you can start from a certain position on this disk. It is indicated in the corresponding Position (%) field, this is quite useful if the disk being checked is large. In the Mode field you can select the mode you want to test. There are 4 of them in total: Read, write, write+read, write+read+check. You also have the opportunity to test the peak speed of the hard drive and record the test results in text file, which may be useful if any errors occur. To do this, you need to check the boxes next to the appropriate fields.

    After selecting all required parameters just click the Start button. You will see the test begin and a speed graph appear. Below it will also be displayed information about the current speed and the average during testing.

    What is noteworthy is that if you want to start a new test (for example, another section), the results of the previous one do not disappear and the graph continues, which is convenient for comparing results.

    Download HD Speed ​​- http://www.steelbytes.com/?mid=20

    This program has a Russian version, but the simplicity of the interface allows you to use the English version of the utility.

    To test speed using this program, you first need to select the number of write and read cycles and the size of the file being tested. Most optimal options the values ​​will be 5 and 1 GiB respectively. Next, select the disk for the test from the drop-down list. After this, select the All button.

    Although, very often, it will be enough to confine ourselves to checking sequential writing and reading (SeqQ32T1 button). After checking, the program will give you the results of the speed of reading and writing to the disk (respectively, these are the Read and Write columns).

    Download CrystalDiskMark - http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

    Unlike the first two, this utility is not free.
    To test using this program, you must select the Testing tab. The window that opens will open a list of disks available for testing. In it you need to select the one you need hard drive. There is no way to test separately logical drives, but it is worth noting that the test time is somewhat faster than in the first two programs. After selecting the disk, you need to click the Start button, which is located slightly above the list.

    Testing will begin, the results of which will be displayed in the form of a graph, and upon completion, the program will display the values ​​of the average, minimum and maximum disk reading speed.

    If you are interested in a more detailed picture, then refer to the graph, on the vertical axis of which the speed values ​​​​are plotted directly, and on the horizontal axis – the verification stage.

    Download Ashampoo HDD Control 2 - https://www.ashampoo.com/ru/rub/pin/0365/system-software/hdd-control-2

    Thus, we got acquainted with three programs with which you can check the speed of your hard drive. In fact, there are many more of them; I have described those that, in my opinion, are convenient and easy to use. But still, if they, for example, do not suit you in some way, you can always turn to other utilities.

    Among ordinary users For those who do not consider themselves to be enthusiastic builders or simply interested in PC equipment, there is an opinion that the speed of a computer primarily depends on the processor frequency and capacity RAM. This is partly true, but many often underestimate another very important component modern computer– disk for user data and operating system. The speed of your computer as a whole greatly depends on how fast your PC's file storage system works. That is why users who want to upgrade their computer's performance are first advised to buy an SSD, since it works much faster than conventional hard drives.

    There are many reasons to check disk speed. From banal curiosity to diagnosing performance degradation or comparing the speeds declared by the manufacturer with the real ones. Checking disk speed in Windows 10 will also help you figure out whether you should replace your disk with a different one to improve performance.

    Unfortunately, Windows 10 does not have built-in mechanisms for measuring disk speed, so we will use third party applications to complete this task.

    CrystalDisk Mark - checking hard drive speed

    One of the most popular utilities for checking disk speed in Windows 10. Simple, free, convenient, and also Russified. In addition, it can be downloaded from the store Microsoft Store, which will further simplify the task for the user.

    For reference: The version from the store is no different from the version on the official website. It's all about ease of installation.

    Drive speed test in AS SSD Benchmark


    It is quite possible that you will see figures lower than those declared by the manufacturer of your drive (primarily this applies to SSDs). In this case, we recommend checking the interface SSD connections to the computer. To “unleash the potential” of a regular 2.5” drive, use a SATA3 connection. It provides speeds of up to 600 Mb/sec. SATA3 drives can be connected to SATA and SATA2 interfaces, but in this case they maximum speed will not be higher than 150 and 300 Mb/sec. The most high values will demonstrate drives in a RAID configuration or with a PCIe interface. If when checking hard drive you notice very low speed readings, perhaps there is a certain amount of " bad sectors" In this case, we recommend you. This will help you decide whether to upgrade your PC's storage system or existing drives They can still work for some time.

    You can check the interface type at motherboard computer or third party software. The developer of CrystalDisk Mark has created a utility that you will need to check SATA type. It will not only show the connected interface, but also another important information, such as the health status of the disk, its temperature, “mileage” and so on.


    There is a large number other applications to test the speed of your drives. In this article, we focused on only two, as we consider their capabilities sufficient for the average user. Paired with CrystalDisk Info, they provide the consumer with all necessary tools to diagnose the speed and health of the drive.

    Good afternoon.

    The speed of the disk determines the speed of the entire computer as a whole! Moreover, surprisingly, many users underestimate this point... But the loading speed of the Windows OS, the speed of copying files to/from a disk, the speed of launching (loading) programs, etc. - it all depends on the speed of the disk.

    Nowadays there are two types of disks in PCs (laptops): HDD ( hard disk drive - familiar hard drives) and SSD ( solid-state drive- a newfangled solid-state drive). Sometimes their speed differs significantly (for example, Windows 8 on my computer with an SSD starts in 7-8 seconds, versus 40 seconds with an HDD - the difference is colossal!).

    And now about what utilities and how you can check the speed of the disk.

    One of best utilities to check and test drive speed (the utility supports both HDD and SSD drives). Works in all popular Windows OS: XP, 7, 8, 10 (32/64 bits). It supports the Russian language (although the utility is quite simple and easy to understand even without knowledge of English).

    Rice. 1. CrystalDiskMark main window

    To test your disk in CrystalDiskMark you need to:

    • select the number of write and read cycles (in Fig. 2 this number is 5, the optimal option);
    • 1 GiB - file size for testing (optimal option);
    • “C:\” - drive letter for testing;
    • To start the test, simply click the “All” button. By the way, in most cases they always focus on the line “SeqQ32T1” - i.e. sequential writing/reading - therefore, you can simply select a test specifically for this option (you need to press the button of the same name).

    The first speed (Read column, from English “read”) is the speed of reading information from the disk, the second column is writing to the disk. By the way, in Fig. 2 SSD drive was tested ( Silicon Power Slim S70): read speed 242.5 Mb/s - not the best indicator. For modern SSDs, the optimal speed is considered to be at least ~400 Mb/s, provided the connection is via SATA3* (although 250 Mb/s is more than the speed regular HDD and the increase in speed is visible to the naked eye).

    * How to determine the operating mode SATA hard disk?

    From the link above, in addition to CrystalDiskMark, you can also download another utility - CrystalDiskInfo. This utility will show you SMART disk, its temperature and other parameters (in general, an excellent utility for obtaining information about the device).

    After starting it, pay attention to the line “Transfer mode” (see Fig. 3). If this line displays SATA/600 (up to 600 MB/s), it means the disk is operating in SATA mode 3 (if the line displays SATA/300 - i.e. maximum throughput 300 MB/s is SATA 2).

    AS SSD Benchmark

    Author's website: http://www.alex-is.de/ (download link at the very bottom of the page)

    Another very interesting utility. Allows you to easily and quickly test the hard drive of your computer (laptop): quickly find out the read and write speed. No installation required, use as standard (as with the previous utility).

    This utility is designed to conduct speed tests and read-write disks - HDD and, you can even test USB flash drives. The program is very simple, and also free, aimed more at ordinary users, but it is also suitable for professionals. You can download CrystalDiskMark from this site: http://crystalmark.info/?lang=en . There is an installation version, that is, with an extension file.exe, and a portable version, which does not need to be installed on your computer. You can choose a program that weighs 3.0 Mb.

    How to check hard drive speed?

    Launch the utility, a window will quickly open in which we see not many elements, but a lot that is not clear. It is clear that the fields with numbers will indicate the results of the check; on the left there are buttons that we can press. The tabs also allow you to select some values ​​and disks that will be tested.


    Do not rush to immediately proceed to the check; first select the disk, and then select other values ​​​​in the drop-down tabs.

    The first tab, where just numbers shows the read/write cycles of the test file, which will be created by CrystalDiskMark and placed on the disk being tested by the utility. The next tab determines the size of this file. The default is five cycles with a file size of 1Gb - for a regular hard drive these are normal parameters. In the case of an SSD, there is a possibility of faster disk wear, since solid state drives very sensitive to frequent operations on them. Therefore, in the program parameters, the number of cycles can be set to 3, and the size of the test file to 100 MB.

    Now let's look at the names of the buttons on the left and what they do.

    On at the moment The version of the CrystalDiskMark utility is 5.1.2 and there are 5 points, their purpose is as follows:

    • All– the parameter runs all the tests that are available in the program, that is, it is the same as pressing all the buttons on the left;
    • Seq Q32T1 and button Seq– sequential read and write test with a depth of 32 in 1 stream;
    • 4K Q32T1 and button 4K– this parameter runs a random read/write test in 4 KB blocks.


    Thus, during the test, the program will show the average reading and writing speeds of the drive. The program has 2 columns where Read- reading, and Write– recording, we look at them after checking.

    If you wish, you can copy the scan results and save them anywhere. To do this, click on the tab "File" and select item "Copy" or "Save".


    Conclusion

    In fact, you should pay more attention to timings 2 and 4, since in normal disk use sequential read and write processes are used less often, random sequences are most often used. Therefore, if they tell you about large reading and writing values, then this is most likely a lie, but this does not always happen.

    As an alternative, you can use other programs for checking disks, for example, HD Tune, I will also try to write about it.

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