HDD Perf. under Win 7?

[KTE]

I noticed HDD always working hard and the HDD performance bottoming out in Win 7 (all), so I ran some tests (much more than posted here). HDTune of the latest revision to the older (loved, 320GB single-platter) AAKS WD Caviar Blue drives under 3 OSes.

Win XP Pro SP3 32b

http://www.hostthenpost.org/uploads/007c96ee26ff8e301a2160278a22ad17.png (http://hostthenpost.org)

Win Vista Ultimate 32b

http://www.hostthenpost.org/uploads/9ceccff692b9154a432c0ab5b8cead78.png (http://hostthenpost.org)

Win 7 RC 32b (7100)

http://www.hostthenpost.org/uploads/36e7203f70f2876b1a096f05b7cd5cb4.png (http://hostthenpost.org)

This isn't an OS drive.
What's happening in Win 7, the disk trace not running well with the storage driver? :o

What are others in non-RAID setups getting in comparison to Vista/XP?

[Archer]

Is HDTune 100% tested for Win7?
Are all power saving setting the same in Win 7 (it is worth a check but I doubt there is a problem) as the other two OS's?
Is the controller software a Vista distro being used in 7?

If I recall correctly Vista had similar types of problems at launch (nothing this bad I don't think), could it be that if MS rebuilt from Vista base code and forgot the fix?

I say Drivers but it doesn't really look like it on the chart, although depending on how 7 behaves with your particular HW setup it is possible.

It could also be a windows service causing the problem as it looks to be a fairly consistent drop and separation. Try shutting Down a services that are not an absolutely necessity and see what that does.

[Neuromancer]

Fresh install? Might want to wait a while. Vista has indexing and other services running that caused problems for the first week or so of use. Unless you have tweaked 7, I am sure that the case is similar.

One thing you did not mention...

CPU usage has gone down with each OS upgrade....

[KTE]

Is HDTune 100% tested for Win7?
It works as it should from what I've seen but no idea if it's 100% tested or not. Good point. However, as I stated, plenty of other tests are confirming something wrong with the disk subsystem. Real application tests (like FC-Test).

Here's what Roadkil thinks of the C: partition (same drive):

Win XP Pro SP3 32b

http://hostthenpost.org/uploads/e1d0f5f2481fabc07f9ca5a5a1839a91.png (http://hostthenpost.org)

Win Vista Ultimate 32b

http://hostthenpost.org/uploads/d3d28d674c0f018d652723439fcaa035.png (http://hostthenpost.org)

Win 7 RC 32b (7100)

http://hostthenpost.org/uploads/7c91ef78c3f6e43738e782674e2a32e7.png (http://hostthenpost.org)

8KB and below file sizes are where tests are showing Win 7 to be suffering compared to Vista/XP. The most used file sizes on the OSes.

Are all power saving setting the same in Win 7 (it is worth a check but I doubt there is a problem) as the other two OS's?Win 7 doesn't have power saving tech. working in any of my builds, so maximum performance is chosen all the time on this. The other OSes actually run minimum performance settings (still give normal results).
Is the controller software a Vista distro being used in 7?Nope.
If I recall correctly Vista had similar types of problems at launch (nothing this bad I don't think), could it be that if MS rebuilt from Vista base code and forgot the fix?

I say Drivers but it doesn't really look like it on the chart, although depending on how 7 behaves with your particular HW setup it is possible.I didn't have any such major problem in Vista with HDD's, was beta testing them through MS for a long while. It did have slower HDD perf. at the beginning but at least nothing extremely odd as Win 7 RC is showing. Win 7 is making the HDD work constantly in the background, you can hear it seeking even thugh these drives aren't loud (not too much above ambient).

I say this because I know hardware MFGs touting how perfect HDD perf. is with Win 7 and how it's far better a bug fix of Vista. Not since now but since months now they've been saying this to me whilst my first major test leaves much to be desired.

It could also be a windows service causing the problem as it looks to be a fairly consistent drop and separation. Try shutting Down a services that are not an absolutely necessity and see what that does.That above was running bare minimum, everything surplus off, AFAIK.

Fresh install?
2 fresh installs, albeit tweaked. Much standard apps disabled in the back.
Might want to wait a while. Vista has indexing and other services running that caused problems for the first week or so of use. Unless you have tweaked 7, I am sure that the case is similar.Yep, will be waiting and am already talking with MS about it to see what they say.
One thing you did not mention...

CPU usage has gone down with each OS upgrade....It's sorta misleading if you tried judging it as absolutes on those ss :p

XP - CPU at 800MHz / 0.82v
Vista - CPU at 1000MHz / 1.0v
Win 7 - CPU at 2800MHz / 1.21v

Vista/Win 7 - everything in background totally off
XP - with many tasks running in the background, incl. browser and CoLinux

Had quickly ran that XP test whilst posting since the previous one I had with the same setup had the top portion deleted, i.e. http://hostthenpost.org/uploads/c6a711fdae52dc3d8774737c04ce0dff.png
XP has the least CPU usage in that test if background tasks are kept consistent.

[Archer]

Yeah I will test as soon as I get the 7-32 rig up to see if I get the same type of problem.

[zanzabar]

with server 08r2 ec (windows7 server) and my ich92 128k stripe 2x samsung 501j raid0 is going strong its about the same as vista (2MB/s less minim and more burst but the rest is about the same)
http://i41.tinypic.com/e0fsx2.png

and dont use windows7 32bit only use x64 the x86 (32bit) is a secondary OS and for netbooks and not intended for performance or main stream use, and with the hyper visor and virtual xp u dont loose 16bit support at all so there is no benifit of 32bit.

[KTE]

HTPC low-end system and such systems will stick to 32b for a while yet.

Only work provided performance systems use 64b in my usage and out of those, very few are not Linux anyway.

Not sure what's wrong, no response from MS yet. It could be an AMD chipset only thing.