The software we use for measuring hard disk drive performance, DiskSpeed32, performs really long tests, since it reads all sectors on the hard disk measuring the achieved transfer rate and plotting a graph.

Normally the hard disk transfer rate varies according to the part of the disk that is being read. The disk transfer rate is higher at the disk's edge, lowering as it approaches its center. This occurs because of the zone bit recording (ZBR): in longer tracks (the ones away from the disk center) there are more sectors and more data is read at each disk spin. because of that, the software used shows three results: maximum transfer rate (obtained on the first disk cylinders, i.e., on the tracks located near the disk edge), minimum transfer rate (obtained on the last disk cylinders, i.e., on the most inner tracks), and average transfer rate, which is the result that we are usually interested in knowing.

Because of this effect we can also explain the need of hard disk defragging and why professional disk defrag utilities such as Norton Speed Disk allow you to move the operating system files to the beginning of the hard disk. As we explained, data stored on the beginning of the disk are read at a higher transfer rate than data stored in other sectors.

On the graph below you see our benchmarking results (in KB/s) and our analysis.

In our benchmarking Samsung's SP1604N hard disk drive achieved an excellent performance, obtaining a performance similar to 120 GB SP1203N hard drive also from Samsung. Its  maximum performance was 4.01% greater than Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 160 GB ATA/133, 16.64% greater than Western Digital WD2500 250 GB Serial ATA, 22.25% greater than Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 60 GB ATA/133 and 60.21% greater than Maxtor DiamondMax 16 250 GB ATA/133.

As for its average transfer rate, the reviewed model from Samsung was 4.07% faster than Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 160 GB ATA/133, 9.39% faster than Western Digital WD2500 250 GB Serial ATA, 18.64% faster than Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 60 GB ATA/133 and 57.63% faster than Maxtor DiamondMax 16 250 GB ATA-133.