StarTech Standalone Hard Drive Eraser And USB 3.0 Dock Capsule Review
by Billy Tallis on February 16, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- USB 3.0
- SATA
- DAS
- StarTech.com
Random Read Performance
The random read test requests 4kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, making it a worst-case scenario for the mechanical hard drive and its high seek time.
The impact of the dock on performance is much more severe for the random read test than for either of the sequential tests. The SSD's performance is only about a fifth of its native SATA speed despite the throughput in this test being nowhere near the limits of the dock. Even the painfully slow hard drive was measurably slowed by the dock, showing that it imposes a clear per-request latency overhead.
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| Samsung 850 Pro 2TB (SATA) | Samsung 850 Pro 2TB (USB) | ||||||||
| Seagate Barracuda 3TB (SATA) | Seagate Barracuda 3TB (USB) | ||||||||
The queue depth scaling for the hard drive had to be graphed with a very different scale for performance, but we are able to observe the effect of Native Command Queuing. The overhead of the dock on the hard drive has the effect of reducing the queue depth to a fourth of its actual value. The SSD's performance in the dock across queue depths is mostly flat but again slightly slower at QD1.
Random Write Performance
The random write test is conducted with the same timing and queue depths as the random read test, but is limited to a 16GB span of the drive. For SSDs, this ensures that the drive has plenty of spare area to perform wear leveling and garbage collection without hurting performance. For hard drives, this greatly limits the maximum seek distance and thus improves the average seek time.
The key to the fast random write performance of SSDs even at low queue depths is that the drive will buffer writes, signaling completion before the data has actually been fully written to flash. Without this capability, the inherently slower write speed than read speed would be readily apparent. Even in the latency-challenged eraser dock, the SSD's quick turnaround time for write commands provides a significant benefit. For the hard drive, the overhead of the dock is very small and the restricted range of the test allows the random writes to be three times faster than the random reads across the entire disk.
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| Samsung 850 Pro 2TB (SATA) | Samsung 850 Pro 2TB (USB) | ||||||||
| Seagate Barracuda 3TB (SATA) | Seagate Barracuda 3TB (USB) | ||||||||
The queue depth scaling of the SSD doesn't present any surprises, but the hard drive's performance is interesting. Both in the dock and connected internally, the hard drive's performance peaks at QD4, suffers as the queue depth increases to 8 and 16, and recovers some at QD32. This might represent a limitiation of this drive's NCQ implementation. Note that the hard drive's drastically lower random I/O performance again required a different vertical scale from the SSD.
Mixed Random Read/Write Performance
The mixed random I/O benchmark starts with a pure read test and gradually increases the proprotion of writes, finishing with pure writes. The queue depth is 3 for the entire test and each subtest lasts for 3 minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. This test is restricted to a 16GB span of the drive.
The overall scores on the mixed random test are unsurprisingly pretty similar to the separate random read and write scores. The limited span and increased queue depth help some, especially for the mechanical drive, while the SSD's averages fall between its random read and write scores. The dock continues to impose a severe performance penalty on the SSD and a slight one for the hard drive.
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| Samsung 850 Pro 2TB (SATA) | Samsung 850 Pro 2TB (USB) | ||||||||
| Seagate Barracuda 3TB (SATA) | Seagate Barracuda 3TB (USB) | ||||||||
As with the other random tests, the hard drive had to be graphed on a different scale from the SSD. In the dock, the SSD demonstrates a slight increase in performance as the workload becomes more write-heavy and it is not able to show the large improvement when reaching the pure-write portion of the test. The hard drive's performance in the dock retains the same basic profile as when connected internally, but suffers in every subtest save for the pure-write portion.
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Samus - Wednesday, February 17, 2016 - link
Interesting product, but really expensive. You could build a great drive wiping station for $100 bucks, one that could wipe 4+ drives simultaneously. All you need is a semi-modern motherboard with a few SATA ports, a USB flash drive to boot Derik's Boot and Nuke, and a cozy case lined with rubber to set the drives on or a case with tool-less drive insert/ejection. Boot and Nuke can be scripted to run autonomously so you wouldn't need a keyboard/mouse/monitor, just turn the PC on with drives attached, wait for the flash drive access light to stop blinking and press 1-5 to run scripts 1-5 which you define. It can output a log to serial\parallel port, or write a recurring log to a network share or the USB flash drive itself. I setup a station years ago that printed a report to a networked printer by just outputting the log to an IP address, and the printer would pick it up as a PCL job,This is just 3x more expensive than it should be. If it did 2-4 drives simultaneously, had eSATA, working USB 3.0 UASP, more custom configurations/scripting and perhaps a built in thermal label printer, $300 would be justified. But as it is, it's just a glorified (and crippled) $30 drive dock.
erple2 - Sunday, February 28, 2016 - link
I'm not sure that Darik's boot and nuke is sufficient, though. Most hard drives (all hard drives made after about 2001) implement the ata secure erase feature in firmware (it's part of the ata spec). So a simple hdparm command will do what you need to securely erase any HDD. Note that the "overwrite n times with alternating 0's and 1's" method isn't really any more helpful today as it was in the past. Even a single full overwrite buys you only a barely better than 50% chance of getting the value of the given bit. Plus with the density of data HDDs today, it's very nearly impossible to even read a drive without its read head.As for SSD, that's probably more complex, but the "sanitize" command should be sufficient. It passes nist sp800-88, at least.
azrael- - Thursday, February 18, 2016 - link
I see a Seagate HDD was used in the test. Don't Seagate drives have a history of destroying themselves (albeit at usually the most inopportune time) making this a moot exercise... ;-)Senti - Friday, February 19, 2016 - link
Seagate drive is another insurance that data is really destroyed.scaryhalo - Saturday, February 20, 2016 - link
Coffee and Doughnut on screen, large grin on face, strange look from fellow commuters! You sir, are chuckle master today :)Reginaldpeebottom - Thursday, February 18, 2016 - link
I think the market they are seeking to fill is obviously a niche one and the price is appropriate. All the suggestions here of it being cheaper to setup something that could do more drives, or faster, or "better" somehow miss the point that this product is aimed at something like a small-medium sized professional/business office (Doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc) where they don't have a permanent IT person, they have staff with computer skills which are minimal beyond their work applications, and they need or are required to deal with privacy related issues upon decommissioning old computer HDs. This product is perfect for that: it looks simple to use, is stand alone, and time really isn't an issue since th staff person just walks away and does her/his work. The print out is great too if used as a way to have a record of the job being done for auditing purposes. $300 price tag is something businesses like that won't even blink at. It's not that expensive and it can be expensed.bobbozzo - Sunday, February 21, 2016 - link
Hi, I would have liked to see a few words about build quality...I was looking for an eSATA dual-dock, and came across StarTech and some other brands, but all of them had lots of bad reviews complaining about unreliable connections, etc.
thanks!
Sam Snead - Saturday, March 12, 2016 - link
If you really wanted to make sure no one could ever read a drive, wouldn't it be better to drill a few holes through the drive and toss it into the nearest body of water? I've heard a few .45 caliber slugs thru the drive also makes it unreadable, but that is awfully non-PC.