How to test Hard disk drive speed-Measure its transfer rate and performance

Ever wondered how fast is your current hard disk ? Every time you buy a new hard drive for your system.. do you really know its advantages over the old one ? For many it doesn't matter how fast their hard disk drive is until their computer is working for them but still many are out there who would like to know about their new SATA II HDD's performance and speed. Here I will specify few ways to know about speed and performance of any type of hard disk

Well, there are free tools available for both.. Linux and windows . By using them you can get to know about speed and performance as well general information of your hard disk drives. Sometimes these tools can also help you to diagnose problems related to your computer's performance those are mainly due to hard drive's poor performance.


How to Check Hard disk drive speed , performance and information in Windows Machine

If you are running a computer with Microsoft windows 2000, windows xp, windows vista etc. then you can download a free tool called as HDtune to know about your hard disk as well as test its speed.

After install you can run benchmark test which will tell you your hard drives Maximum transfer speed, Minimum transfer speed and Average Transfer speed. It will also tell you access time. Apart of that, this tool lets you know all information you may ever need about a hard drive, including its buffer, its all features etc and current hard drive temperature. As this tool provide more advance options, you can use them later on when you really need. You can also use its "Error Scan" feature to know more about health status of your HDD.

You can download HDtune from here : HD Tune Free Download
(Note: There is one paid version too of HD tune named as HDtune Pro but you need to download only HD tune ie freeware)