Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC560 20TB HDD Review

1. Introduction2. WD Ultrastar DC HC560 20TB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. IOMeter 4K Random Performance7. Throughput8. Workload Scenarios9. Real Life File Transfer Tests10. Closing Thoughts11. View All Pages

We tested the WD Ultrastar DC HC560 with a number of scenarios that it may face in the real world. The settings for these scenarios are as follows.

File Server
512MB file size, 16KB Block size
80% Read 20% Write 100% Random
I/O queue depth 128

Web Server
1GB file size, 16KB Block size
100% Read 0% Write 100% Random
I/O queue depth 64

Database
2GB file size, 4KB Block size
90% Read 10% Write, 90% Random, 10% Sequential
I/O depth 128

Workstation
1GB file size, 16KB Block size
70% Read 30% Write, 100% Random, 0% Sequential
I/O depth 6

WD's Ultrastar DC H560 produces very strong performance in these workloads tests and is the fastest mechanical drive we've seen to date in three out of the four tests; File Server (11.04MB/s), Web Server (16.05MB/s) and Workstation (9.51MB/s). In the fourth Database test, the drive is the third-fastest we've seen.

We also tested the drive with some more datacentre centric workloads. The settings for these workloads are as follows.

Database Server QD4
Transfer Size: 4K , Reads: 67% Writes: 33%
Random: 100%, Threads/Workers: 4
Outstanding IO: 4

Database Server QD64
Transfer Size: 4K, Reads: 67% Writes: 33%
Random: 100% , Threads/Workers: 4
Outstanding IO: 64

Exchange Email 4K
Transfer Size: 4K, Reads: 67% Writes: 33%
Random: 100%, Threads/Workers: 4
Outstanding IO: 128

Exchange Email 32K
Transfer Size: 32K, Reads: 67% Writes: 33%
Random: 100%, Threads/Workers: 4
Outstanding IO: 128

Media Streaming
Transfer Size: 64K, Reads: 98% Writes: 2%
Sequential: 100%, Threads/Workers: 8
Outstanding IO: 64

Search Engine
Transfer Size: 4K, Reads: 100% Writes: 0%
Random: 100%, Threads/Workers:8
Outstanding IO: 128

Video On Demand
Transfer Size: 512K, Reads: 100% Writes: 0%
Random: 100%, Threads/Workers: 8
Outstanding IO: 64

Web File Server 4KB QD64
Transfer Size: 4K, Reads: 95% Writes 5%
Random: 75%, Threads/Workers: 8
Outstanding IO: 64

Web File Server 8KB QD64
Transfer Size: 8K, Reads: 95% Writes 5%
Random: 75%, Threads/Workers: 8
Outstanding IO: 64

The Media Streaming result of 2,577 IOPS is the fastest we've seen to date for an HDD. The slowest test result was the 222 IOPS for the Video On Demand test.

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