Skyhawk VS Barracuda

[Islam Ghunym]

I already have 2 drives: ST2000DM006 and ST4000VX013.

3.5 HDD DATA SHEET (seagate.com)

ST2000DM006 is ST2000DM008 but with only 64M cache

3.5 HARD DRIVE DATA SHEET (seagate.com)

 

Is the Skyhawk one worse than the barracuda one or both of them is more like the same? in term of performance only

 

Product Brand	Seagate
Model Number	ST2000DM006
Part Number (PN)	2DM164-302
Marketing Name	BARRACUDA35
Family	BARRACUDA35
Interface	SATA
Encryption Type	NO ENCRYPTION
Capacity	2000 GB
Form Factor	3.5
Product Type	DRIVE
Market Segment	Personal Compute
Sub-market Segment	Desktop Storage
Application Segment	DS Mainstream
Performance
Cache Size (MB)	64
Spindle Speed	7200
Interface Transfer Rate	6
Access Time	9.9
Physical
Sector Size	512E
Number of Heads	4
Number of Disks	2
Height	26.1MM
Weight	.55 KG
Zero G Sensor	N

 

 

Product Brand	Seagate
Model Number	ST4000VX013
Part Number (PN)	2XG104-300
Marketing Name	SKYHAWK
Family	SKYHAWK
Interface	SATA
Encryption Type	NO ENCRYPTION
Capacity	4000 GB
Form Factor	3.5
Product Type	DRIVE-SRS
Market Segment	Consumer Electronics
Sub-market Segment	Video
Application Segment	Surveillance
Performance
Cache Size (MB)	256
Spindle Speed	5400
Interface Transfer Rate	6
Access Time	15
Physical
Sector Size	512E
Number of Heads	4
Number of Disks	2
Height	20MM
Weight	.55 KG
Zero G Sensor	N

 

 

is the access time matters? and what is the actual difference in performance when we say an HDD is physically faster ex: 7200 rpm

[Ottoman420]

the faster spinning drive (7200) will be faster but if you have both these drives why not plug them in and bench them in crystal disk or something?

[Islam Ghunym]

1 minute ago, Ottoman420 said:

the faster spinning drive (7200) will be faster but if you have both these drives why not plug them in and bench them in crystal disk or something?

the things is numbers was all over the place.... barracuda one did 120 MB almost every time for first line of test for both read and write. Skyhawk sometimes made it 175 MB.. sometimes 120 other times only 60... there was no consistency at all.. so I am not sure. right now, I am filling the 4 T.B Skyhawk with data from the 2 T.B Barracuda and the process feels waaaaay slow for some reason so I am checking if there is something wrong in my PC or I only bought the wrong HDD after all. (The Skyhawk is the new one)

[Ottoman420]

5 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

the things is numbers was all over the place.... barracuda one did 120 MB almost every time for first line of test for both rad and right. Skyhawk sometimes made it 175 MB.. sometimes 120 other times only 60... there was no consistency at all.. so I am not sure. right now, I am filling the 4 T.B Skyhawk with data from the 2 T.B Barracuda and the process feels waaaaay slow for some reason so I am checking if there is something wrong in my PC or I only bought the wrong HDD after all. (The Skyhawk is the new one)

Well in the scenario that you transferring data between the two drives then it dsent matter which is faster because you are limited by the slowest drive, if you got a sata ssd you would see a big difference in everything. old spinning drives are great for occasional access or storage but i would try and get a a couple ssds and use the hdds for longer term storage

[podkall]

4 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

feels waaaaay slow for some reason

Yeah that's what HDDs are, they are decently fast but slow at writing usually,

try googling how does HDD write and read data.

[mariushm]

In theory, being a "surveillance" series drive, the Skyhawk should have a firmware optimized for writing multiple files/streams in parallel and lower response times (well.. not really response, but it's hard to explain)

The basic idea is that you may have 8-16 security cameras and the software records each camera at 5-10mbps (~ 1MB/s) and writes 8-16 files at 1 MB/s the drive is supposed to handle this much better than a regular drive and report to the software that the data was written much faster and therefore the software won't miss video frames because it's waiting for the drive to complete writing previous frames.

In general such optimizations means you lose peak read/write speeds, drive won't be as fast as other drives with same rpm and platter density, but it's better suited for writing multiple things in parallel.

Also in theory, some such series of surveillance/security drives (ex wd purple) claim they can tolerate higher temperature better - because those security camera recorders can often be locked in metal boxes with poor ventilation so the drives often run 24/7 writing stuff and also get much hotter.

In practice I don't how much is true.

 

Otherwise the rpm is not the only thing that matters. Drives can be made with different platters, which have different densities.

For example, your 2 TB could have platters that an store 500 GB on one surface, so the drive is made with 2 plattes, using all four surfaces.

The 4 TB could be made with newer platters that store data much densely, so for example they could do 800 GB per side ... so the 4 TB can be packed in 3 platters, using 5 surfaces.

Because there's 3 platters, the access time may be higher (because you have more heads, more weight, so it takes a bit more to seek a track and move the whole assembly) but once the reading starts, in one rotation the drive reads more bytes from the disk, because the data is packed more densely.

 

It also matters where a file is read from or written to. If you want exact numbers, use tools like HD Tune - HD Tune website - that reads drive surface from the first sector to the last and draws nice graph with the speed

[ewitte]

I only use NAS drives for non SSD they seem to last longer and have less issues.  

[ewitte]

38 minutes ago, podkall said:

Yeah that's what HDDs are, they are decently fast but slow at writing usually,

try googling how does HDD write and read data.

For large files it is ok.  If you try to do lots of random writes it will crash down to just a few MB/s sometimes even less than 1MB/s.

[podkall]

10 minutes ago, ewitte said:

For large files it is ok.  If you try to do lots of random writes it will crash down to just a few MB/s sometimes even less than 1MB/s.

ofc, key word lots of

the HDD only spins as fast, the head only moves as fast and knows rough location of the data not exact

 

vs SSD with basicaly lightspeed electric storage and a memory controller or whatever

[Islam Ghunym]

3 hours ago, Ottoman420 said:

Well in the scenario that you transferring data between the two drives then it dsent matter which is faster because you are limited by the slowest drive, if you got a sata ssd you would see a big difference in everything. old spinning drives are great for occasional access or storage but i would try and get a a couple ssds and use the hdds for longer term storage

This is more like a one time process to move or copy files from 1 drive to another. Later the general use case will be recording, gaming, compression and decompression....

[Islam Ghunym]

2 hours ago, podkall said:

Yeah that's what HDDs are, they are decently fast but slow at writing usually,

try googling how does HDD write and read data.

The manufacturer does not mention anything about a difference between writes and reads in term of speed. Everything indicates that they are the same. However technologies are improving and what was in the past is not the same these days. Googling does not give the right information most of the time.

[podkall]

6 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

This is more like a one time process to move or copy files from 1 drive to another. Later the general use case will be recording, gaming, compression and decompression....

That depends, how fast the data needs to travel,

 

for example, all games basicaly benefit from SSD when it comes to launchign the game,

 

but as far as loading goes that depends on games,

 

Singleplayer story games, some take few seconds to load on HDD, some take little bit longer.

 

HDDs are good for majority of programs and games,

 

SSDs are for OS, games that take too much time loading next scene on HDD or for people who have buckets of money and can just afford having SSDs for everything.

 

General question like is HDD good enough isn't very easy to answer, even if you say for gaming streaming recording.

 

What games, does a 10 second recording already become a 1GB file or not?

 

Most things HDDs should handle.

 

You can make a new thread saying what you do and asking of using SSD instead of HDD has benefit.

 

Or which apps/games benefit from SSD. Or ask both questions.

[Islam Ghunym]

@seagate_surfer you probably have something to say

[Islam Ghunym]

1 hour ago, podkall said:

That depends, how fast the data needs to travel,

 

for example, all games basicaly benefit from SSD when it comes to launchign the game,

 

but as far as loading goes that depends on games,

 

Singleplayer story games, some take few seconds to load on HDD, some take little bit longer.

 

HDDs are good for majority of programs and games,

 

SSDs are for OS, games that take too much time loading next scene on HDD or for people who have buckets of money and can just afford having SSDs for everything.

 

General question like is HDD good enough isn't very easy to answer, even if you say for gaming streaming recording.

 

What games, does a 10 second recording already become a 1GB file or not?

 

Most things HDDs should handle.

 

You can make a new thread saying what you do and asking of using SSD instead of HDD has benefit.

 

Or which apps/games benefit from SSD. Or ask both questions.

I was placing the HDD in  a bad place near vibrations. That's why it was not performing well. I found it out. Unlike the other barracuda HDD, this one has SHM and can underperform to save itself from a possible failure. The Barracuda was doing well even at the same bad condition. I changed the HDD place a tightened it up with the chase. It sounds fine now . If yoy read the second post you would find why I was asking about differences. I noticed unexpected bad performance which made me wonder, but now it is cleared for me hopefully. I already know that HDD instead of an SSD shouldn't be a huge deal for me. The extra space is what I need in the end and no HDD can perform like SSD. This topic does not meant to compare SSDs for anything here.

[podkall]

4 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

I was placing the HDD in  a bad place near vibrations. That's why it was not performing well. I found it out. Unlike the other barracuda HDD, this one has SHM and can underperform to save itself from a possible failure. The Barracuda was doing well even at the same bad condition. I changed the HDD place a tightened it up with the chase. It sounds fine now . If yoy read the second post you would find why I was asking about differences. I noticed unexpected bad performance which made me wonder, but now it is cleared for me hopefully. I already know that HDD instead of an SSD shouldn't be a huge deal for me. The extra space is what I need in the end and no HDD can perform like SSD. This topic does not meant to compare SSDs for anything here.

that's great news, Seagate is a really good HDD manufacturer

[Islam Ghunym]

3 hours ago, ewitte said:

For large files it is ok.  If you try to do lots of random writes it will crash down to just a few MB/s sometimes even less than 1MB/s.

Windows is handling multiple writes better these days tho since Windows 11 release I noticed it. Doing multiple copying process at a time does not slow writing speed anymore. Technicals also talk about it. Writing throughput since Windows 11 release was greatly improved.

[Islam Ghunym]

4 hours ago, mariushm said:

In theory, being a "surveillance" series drive, the Skyhawk should have a firmware optimized for writing multiple files/streams in parallel and lower response times (well.. not really response, but it's hard to explain)

The basic idea is that you may have 8-16 security cameras and the software records each camera at 5-10mbps (~ 1MB/s) and writes 8-16 files at 1 MB/s the drive is supposed to handle this much better than a regular drive and report to the software that the data was written much faster and therefore the software won't miss video frames because it's waiting for the drive to complete writing previous frames.

In general such optimizations means you lose peak read/write speeds, drive won't be as fast as other drives with same rpm and platter density, but it's better suited for writing multiple things in parallel.

Also in theory, some such series of surveillance/security drives (ex wd purple) claim they can tolerate higher temperature better - because those security camera recorders can often be locked in metal boxes with poor ventilation so the drives often run 24/7 writing stuff and also get much hotter.

In practice I don't how much is true.

 

Otherwise the rpm is not the only thing that matters. Drives can be made with different platters, which have different densities.

For example, your 2 TB could have platters that an store 500 GB on one surface, so the drive is made with 2 plattes, using all four surfaces.

The 4 TB could be made with newer platters that store data much densely, so for example they could do 800 GB per side ... so the 4 TB can be packed in 3 platters, using 5 surfaces.

Because there's 3 platters, the access time may be higher (because you have more heads, more weight, so it takes a bit more to seek a track and move the whole assembly) but once the reading starts, in one rotation the drive reads more bytes from the disk, because the data is packed more densely.

 

It also matters where a file is read from or written to. If you want exact numbers, use tools like HD Tune - HD Tune website - that reads drive surface from the first sector to the last and draws nice graph with the speed

It is already written in the specs both HDDs have 4 surfaces and 4 reading heads which means the 4 T.B is only as twice as dense and from there the disk have to spin less to read and write data across it so probably the more dense 5400 rpm here is faster than the 7200 rpm which has half the density. Anyway maximum possible sustained speeds for both HDDs are almost the same in specs so rpm probably does not mean a lot here, but what is the access time ? Is it the time needed for the HDD to respond to access a certain location on the disk and then reading and writing have nothing to do with that ? Or is it something else?

[mariushm]

access time is maximum time it would take for the read/write heads to be moved over a particular track, plus the time it takes for the data to arrive under the read/write head to be read.

When the heads arrive over the track the whole track is read in drive's ram and what's not needed is dumped.

If a file is not fragmented, then it's in continuous area of the platters (consecutive tracks) so once the first sector of that file is read then the drive can read tracks sequentially and give you the file at highest speed possible.

If the file is fragmented, then drive has to read a track, then seek (move heads to) another track, wait until sectors with file data arrive under the heads then read the next fragment of the file and so on.

 

 

[Snail Jerky]

Is SMR vs CMR relevant to this conversation?

 

 

This was something I found out about after I had purchased my drive...  Still don't understand it all that well, other than there are things you should not use SMR drives for. 

 

Budget was something preventing me from going all SSDs, and looking at my local store the difference between a 2TB SMR vs CMR drive would've been around $30CAD. Which is too much, when taken into account a new PC build and other things already made me overbudget. 

 

[Islam Ghunym]

On 11/11/2022 at 2:56 AM, Snail Jerky said:

Is SMR vs CMR relevant to this conversation?

 

 

This was something I found out about after I had purchased my drive...  Still don't understand it all that well, other than there are things you should not use SMR drives for. 

 

Budget was something preventing me from going all SSDs, and looking at my local store the difference between a 2TB SMR vs CMR drive would've been around $30CAD. Which is too much, when taken into account a new PC build and other things already made me overbudget. 

 

My Seagate Barracuda 2 T.B HDD uses SMR technology and I am more than happy with it's performance despite that it has only 64M cache. I filled it with huge files and crazy high bitrate videos. The whole discussion about SMR being not good and CMR is a lot better is just an exaggeration. The data transfer you will get in the end is the same mentioned in the data sheet whatever it uses SMR or CMR

[Islam Ghunym]

To everyone, I replaced the Skyhawk HDD With Barracuda one and the whole issue about transfer rate being inconsistent is gone. It was a mistake buying and HDD designed to handle only a specific kind of writing (writing on parallel). Skyhawk is for DVR only and only used in monitoring cameras. It does not work properly for PC use case. The results is about over 10 times less performance...... Files that could be copied in 1 hour takes over 10 hours to accomplish. loading games takes from minutes to an hour. reading high bit rate videos smoothly is not possible. Windows OS does not write 64 files at the same time at 3Mb rate or less. This is a very specific kind of workload that does not happen on a daily use of PC... Windows itself avoid this kind of workload in order to avoid defragmentation. Skyhawk HDDs stay in a ready state in realtime to an order of writing 64 files at a time even while reading files from it, this ready state stops the HDD from performing any fast reading process in realtime. In other words the HDD does not perform at all.....

 

In other words Skyhawk HDDs on a PC are a nightmare. They are completely unusable and they will be better in the trash instead of inside your PC chase. I am saying this for people to avoid buying these HDDs for PC by a mistake. It is not slightly worse or 2-3 times less performance.... It is over 10 times worse and completely unusable for PC or servers.