How to know hard drive transfer rate?

[baldmonk]

Hi there,

This is a noobee query! I've got this mac pro in the studio.
It has fcp on it patched through aja kona LH.
Memory is internal only. No RAID. That is a problem if i want to capture or record video if the hard drvie doesnt have the high transfer rate required for uncompressed 10 bit.

How do i check the transfer rate of my internal drive.
In the info it says
Serial ATA: Intel ESB2 AHCI
Speed: 3.0 Gigabit

What does it tell about transfer rate? Is there any other place i should check?

Appreciate ur help.

Thanks!

[goobimama]

Go to the Activity Monitor and the HDD tab. I don't think it's the most accurate way to know things though....

[mac57]

If you are willing to spend a little money, you could get SpeedTools:

http://www.intechusa.com/

The honest truth is I bought this package for this very reason: I wanted to benchmark the hard drive performance and I couldn't find any other way. I was very pleased with the results.

Of course SpeedTools comes with TONS of other goodies. Have a look at the above link. I would heartily recommend it.

Oh.... and WELCOME to Mac Forums!!!

[baldmonk]

Thanks mac57!

Unfortunately I will need to check the spec with what I have for now.

FCP manual says Serial ATA has theoretical data throughput limit of 150 MB/sec. I wonder if it means I can capture Uncompressed SD video (24 MB/sec) safely?
Trouble is, the Digibeta VTR hasn't arrived yet, so can't try it out!

Any inputs much appreciated!

[goobimama]

I get a steady 33mBps of data transfer from my WD MyBook firewire400 external drive. The maximum should be 50MBps for firewire400 and 100mBps for firewire800. I don't think any 'normal' drive touches those speeds. 24mBps is within safe limits...

Though you can forget about these kind of transfers on USB....

[andrebnu]

there's actually a free option called MBBench