How to Measure Disk Performance with Complete Guide 2024

Tracy King updated on Jul 24, 2024 to Partition Manager | How-to Articles

Like any hardware, it's essential to check the storage device. Not only will it ensure you get the best performance, but it also helps you predict any disk failure that may happen all of a sudden. This post will share how to benchmark SSD speed with a detailed step-by-step guide. While you may not follow it every month, doing it at consecutive intervals has benefits.

Measuring disk performance is an essential factor for the overall system performance as it affects the speed of various operations on your computer, like booting your PC, transferring files, loading applications, and more.

So the question is, how to measure Disk performance? To help you out with this question, I have explained every bit of it below. So go ahead and have a quick look at it:

How to Measure Disk Performance?

Now the question is, how do you measure your disk performance? Well, before you do that, there are a few things you should keep in mind:

1. Tools Needed For Disk Performance 🧰

Before you go and start with disk performance measurement, make sure to have these tools in handy:

  • Hard drive
  • Disk connection cable
  • Disk Benchmark Tool
  • Running and healthy Windows computer

2. Select a Disk Benchmark Tool ✅

The most crucial part of the whole process is selecting the right benchmarking tool. There are several tools available out there. Hence, choosing one of the tools can be highly confusing. But here are a few things that you must consider:

  • Support your OS: Your operating system should support the benchmarking tool. If you are using Windows, you will find most benchmarking software compatible with your OS. However, for Mac, the options might be limited.
  • Easy to use: The tool should be easy to use and get started with. You don’t want a tool that offers many features or makes running a simple disk performance measurement test hard.
  • Support benchmarking and measure the types of disk drives on your PC: The tool should also support different disk drives, such as HDD, SSD, external storage devices, and more.

If you want one good tool to measure your disk performance, check out the EaseUS Partition Master. Its DiskMark, Disk Health, and Check File System features can fully help you detect disk peformance Windows 11, 10, 8, and older systems.

3. Step By Step Guide To Measuring Disk Performance 🩺

EaseUS Partition Master is an all-in-one tool that can check your storage device, fix bad sectors, help you manage disk parts, and more. To use the software to measure your disk performance on Windows computers, take the step guide below:

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master. And click the download button to activate the "DiskMark" feature under the "Discovery" section.

Step 2. Click on the drop-down box to choose the target drive, test data, and block size.

Step 3. Once everything is configured, click "Start" to begin the disk test. Then, you can see the Sequential or Random read/write speed, I/O, and Delay data.

Tips to Improve and Optimize Disk Performance

Many factors affect disk performance. It included disk space, optimized space to save files, malware, temperature, and programs that run on the OS, especially in gaming, where the read-write is massive compared to regular usage. 

Disk Cleanup: To maintain a healthy disk performance, you must perform regular disk cleanup, remove unnecessary files, and free up disk space. You can use the built-in Disk Cleanup tool on Windows or other third-party software for the job.

Defragmentation: If you use an HDD, you must perform regular defragmentation to optimize the disk performance. It will recognize fragmented files on the disk, making them more efficient to access.

Check for Malware: You should also check for malicious files or software on your disk, as these files can cause excessive disk activity and high usage and eventually slow down your computer. You can try using good antivirus software for this job.

To measure your disk performance instantly, you can use the EaseUS Partition Master. The tool has proven to surpass other disk performance benchmark tools out there.

Plus, it is backed by many useful features such as changing cluster size, 4k alignment, checking file system, optimizing your disk instantly, etc.

Disk Performance Overview: What Is and When To Measure Disk Performance

For a healthy system, Disk performance management is highly crucial. It helps optimize system performance by evaluating the read and write speeds. But when measuring disk performance, only a few users are well aware of it.

What Is Disk Performance Measurement

Measuring Disk performance means checking the speed and efficiency of a computer disk drive or storage data. You will get to the disk's read and write speed by measuring the disk performance.

Also, it will help you understand the key areas that can affect your disk performance. So you can take up necessary actions. A few key factors that affect disk performance are:

Disk RPM: On hard disk drives, the rotational speed measured in RPM is one of the key factors that impact the overall disk performance. If your disk has a higher RMP, it will have a faster data transfer time. But if it is low, you will experience a laggy performance.

Disk Health: The overall health and condition of the disk also impact the performance. If your storage drive has bad sectors, firmware issues, hardware failure, etc., it could lead to decreased performance, even data loss.

Disk Fragmentation: Over some time, hard disk drives get fragmented. Or it gets scattered in non-contiguous blocks. As a result, you would experience a slower read and write speed.

When Should I Measure My Disk Performance

Also, there are several reasons why you should consider measuring disk performance or when you should do it. For instance:

Benchmarking: Disk performance is measured mainly during benchmarking to evaluate the system's overall capability. So the user can then make different upgrade decisions.

Troubleshooting: If the overall system isn't performing well, Disk performance measurement can be a great way to troubleshoot the issue and determine if the problem occurs because of a faulty storage device.

Optimization: Disk performance measurement can also be helpful when optimizing your driver or configuring it for different requirements.

Conclusion

So that was all for how to measure disk performance. EaseUS Partition Master would be an excellent tool for measuring disk performance and managing storage devices. It comes with lots of tools, and it is straightforward to use.

So go ahead and look at the tool and see if it works for you.

1. Is CrystalDiskMark better than Atto Disk Benchmark?

Both CrystalDiskMark and Atto Disk Benchmark have their pros and cons. On one side, CrystalDiskMark has a user-friendly interface and focuses on random read/write performance which is helpful for everyday disk usage. Conversely, the ATTO Disk Benchmark tool offers a broader range of test patterns and customization options.

2. How do I check disk performance in Windows 10?

Step 1. Press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC keys to launch Task Manager.

Step 2. Expand the Task Manager menu if you haven't already.

Step 3. Click on your Disk to check its performance and details like average response time, active time, and read/write speed.

3. Can I check SSD performance without the software?

Yes, you can check your SSD performance on Windows without any software. However, Windows's details will not be as detailed as benchmarking software would. Hence, it is recommended to use a benchmarking tool to check SSD performance.