How to test hard drive speed?

[luffy]

I just install a second hard drive this. The website said Rotational Speed : 7200 rpm. and Data Transfer Rates : 300 MB/s.
When I check the sticker on the hard drive. It said Data Transfer Rates : 150MB/s. And Nowhere mention about Rotational Speed.
Can you some recommend a free software to check this information?
Thank you.

[whs]

Here are a couple to check the data rate, but not RPM:

Download Disk Bench 2.5.3.2 - Tests your hard drive speed in a real life situation - Softpedia
Roadkil`s Disk Speed Freeware download and review - test hard drive speed from SnapFiles

[luffy]

The result:

Link to the Overall result:
link
My disk test result is below Average. Is it a bad news? The hard drive is new. I just reformat it.

[mara-]

That does not have to be bad. It depends from model you bought. You have WD Caviar Blue (Performance and reliability -average performance ), WD Caviar Green (Cool, quiet, eco-friendly - low performance) ,WD Caviar Black (Maximum performance - max performance). Check which one is your model, and you'll know if you need to be worried.

Cheers

[nitinagarwal1988]

if you need more performance then go for SSDs... they perform's very much faster than traditional magnetic disks...

[whs]

Here is what you can expect from an SSD. Note especially the Access Time.



In comparison, this is my HDD

[mara-]

Well, SSD is great, but the price is really to much now. I just hope it will drop soon, so I can get myself one.

Cheers

[luffy]

Thank you everyone.
I have been playing L4D, crysis, mirror's edge, mass effect on this hard drive. And it runs fine. Probably I'm worry to much.