A Hard Disk Drive is a crucial part of a computer because it stores the operating system of your PC. Basically, it works as the brain of the computer. It also contributes to the speed of the hard drive. Despite having a high-memory and high performing CPU, without an HDD your computer will run slow. It’s especially noticeable while using the internet.
Computer lags also affect multitasking capabilities and that’s the entire purpose why high-performance Hard Drives are in demand. You can also consider upgrading hard drives for improved computer performance. But these days you can check the speed and performance of the hard drive using a benchmarking software. The best benchmarking software is usually free to use.
Here’s a rundown of some of the free tools to measure hard drive performance of your Windows 10 PC.
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CrystalDiskMark
CrystalDiskMark is another trusted disk benchmark program that estimates the speed of the sequential read/write, selects test data, supports themes and multiple languages, and more. The best part about the software is that operates through the setup process pretty quick. There isn’t much to configure, except the root directory.
Moreover, it helps you to get acquainted with your HDD, therefore it has the ability to estimate sequential and random read/write speeds. At the same time, it also displays complete details to user using a straightforward interface. The app is extremely user-friendly allowing all the test results to show up on the primary window.
The program basically, requires just a few minutes to carry out all the benchmarks. Hit the start button after closing all the apps and you get the best results. What’s more? The program does not stress your RAM and processor a lot, however, it’s good to not have any docs open while the program carries out the test.
Price: free
My HDD Speed
My HDD Speed is one of the best free hard drive benchmarking tools that tracks the speed and performance of all your hard drives in real-time. It also displays the read and write activity in a small desktop window. The tool not just tracks the mechanical hard drives, but also the latest SSDs. Given that SSDs come with super-fast read and write speeds and your system is recently upgraded to an SSD, this tool would detect the speed of the new hardware also. The best part is, the latest SSDs are relatively faster compared to its predecessors.
My HDD Speed is compact; however, the newer version features an installer with added software and registration as options. You can decline that and rather open the zipped file and click on it. Once clicked, a small window will open in the upper left end of the desktop. This can be dragged around the screen as well. This display that more looks like a gadget, is placed on a transparent background, so it mixes well. if your system comes with two disk drives such as boot drive as SSD, and large HDD divided into two more drives, the tool will pull up all three in chronological order. Each drive is indicated with an arrow that light up to indicate when data is read or written to the disk.
Each of the lines would also indicate both read and write actions in KB/s. As you right click on the tool’s window or on the system tray image, it opens a menu that lets you run a scan again on your drives, fix the HDD refresh speed, and even Autostart with Windows, and so on.
Price: free
CPU-Z
CPU-Z is a free tool to measure hard drive performance that collects details on some of the major devices on your system such as: