FC-Test Results

Website: FC-Test

Our FC-Test benchmark is split into three parts. First is a write test involving the creation of a file pattern similar to common files such as MP3s or large video files. Once created on the drive, we then copy the file pattern from the drive back to a different folder on the same drive producing a combined read/write test. Finally we test the read speed of the drive by performing FC-Test's read test on the files copied.

For our benchmarks, we're using both the MP3 pattern, consisting of two hundred and seventy small files totalling 0.99GB, and the the ISO pattern, consisting of three large files totalling 1.6GB in size. We feel these file patterns represent the most common files people will be frequently copying to and from an drive, and can be interpreted as as close to a real world file transfer test as possible.


Blimey! Despite the Seagate 7200.12 1TB's uninspiring theoretical write and random access time performance it's proved itself a stormer here, writing our 0.99GB of MP3 files in a very nippy 12.5 seconds - a full second faster than the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB and an improvement of over seven percent.


Simultaneous read/write wasn't as good though and while faster than the previous generation of Seagate 1TB drives is much slower than the Samsung Spinpoint by a factor of almost two seconds.


Read performance is awesome though, and the Seagate 7200.12 1TB is only beaten by the 10,000RPM Western Digital Raptor when it comes to mechanical drives. This is the huge areal density of the twin platters at work, giving the Seagate an eight percent advantage over the Samsung.