Storage Device Block Driver Benchmark Test

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8/27/2008

The Storage Device Block Driver Benchmark Test analyzes the performance of a storage device in reading and writing. The test scans a storage device and attempts to read from and write to every sector on the device. The test displays information about the time required to complete each operation.

You may find it useful to know the time required to complete a read or write operation if you have problems with the file system on the storage device. For example, the test may show you that one disk takes 400 milliseconds (ms) to write, passing the test, while another disk takes 1500 ms to write, failing the test.

Note

When you run the Storage Device Block Driver Benchmark Test, the CETK temporarily copies files to the root directory of the target device. Before running the test, verify that there is at least 0.4 megabytes (MB) of free space in the root directory of the target device. If there is not sufficient space in the root directory of the target device, the test cannot run.

This test may take a long time to complete when you test a storage device with large data capacity because the test reads from and writes to each sector multiple times. Microsoft recommends that you run this test on a storage device with a data capacity of 64 MB or less.

The Storage Device Block Driver Benchmark Test communicates directly with the device drivers. The device drivers are in a layer that is below the file system layer and the file allocation table (FAT) layer. If you have problems with the file system, you may be able to isolate the problem to a specific layer.

The test cases for the Storage Device Block Driver Benchmark Test differ only by the number of sectors that are read or written during each I/O burst. The more sectors you read from or write to at one time, the faster per sector the test runs, because the overhead in running the test is distributed across a larger number of sectors. None of these test cases stress the device driver, so it is safe to choose any test case. You may attribute the failure of a test case to defective hardware. For more information about the test cases for this test, see Test Cases for the Storage Device Block Driver Benchmark Test.

The test starts by displaying basic information about the storage device. This information contains the name of the device, the handle of the device, the number of sectors on the device, and the number of bytes per sector. The test does not give information about cylinders, heads, sectors, and flags, because this information is not relevant to the Storage Device Block Driver Benchmark Test.

If the device driver does not return an error, the test then shows how many sectors it writes to and how long, in milliseconds, the operation takes to complete. A message indicates that the test is attempting to read from those sectors. If the device driver does not return an error, the test attempts to verify that the data read is correct.

If this pattern of successfully writing to and reading from sectors continues to the end of the storage device, the test outputs a report that shows access times, and then returns a passing value to Tux.exe. If the test passes, you can assume that the driver and the storage device are working properly.

Note

In running the test, anticipate that in certain situations, timing issues may arise. For example, a linear flash card requires more time to complete a write operation than other storage devices.

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Storage Device Tests