Seagate NAS 8TB HDD in 4-Disk RAID Review

Test Procedure

I will be creating each possible RAID array through the Intel RAID tool and fully initialize it through the IRST control panel before running each test. I will be running a series of benchmarks with the software mentioned below on each array before destroying it and moving on to the next. I will let each array fully initialise which is a very time-consuming event and a review like this ties up the test bench for more than a week. It is still worth it as we are sure to get the best and most accurate results and thereby a better review of the drives.

I’ll be using four drives in all the tests except RAID 1 mode that only allows two disks to be used. The SSD with the operating system is also running on a different SATA controller to avoid possible performance impact between the operating system and our benchmark tests. Each of the following pages will display a list of screenshots from each test as well as comparison charts for a quick overview.

Test system:

• Supermicro C7Z97-OCE
• Intel Xeon E3-1230Lv3
• Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1866MHz
• Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
• Sapphire R7 240 2GB
• be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W
• Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer
• Lian Li PC-T60

We would like to thank our sponsors for supplying us with our test system components that make these reviews possible.

I’ll use a row of different software applications to gain the broadest spectrum of results and allow for the fairest testing possible.

Software used:

• AIDA64 Engineer
• Anvil’s Storage Utilities
• AS SSD Benchmark
• ATTO Disk Benchmark
• CrystalDiskMark
• IOMeter