The test system used in this review is equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700K CPU, GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-UD3 motherboard, 32GB (16GB x 2) of Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 memory, Samsung 960 PRO 512GB SSD and a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6G graphics card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the iStorage diskAshur PRO2, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark, HD Tach RW, ATTO Disk Benchmark and HD Tune Pro. To get a feel for the "real world" performance, I also copied and pasted 1GB of random files and directories as well as a single 4GB ISO file in Windows Explorer.
CrystalDiskMark 5.1.2:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
iStorage diskAshur PRO2 - USB 3.1
iStorage diskAshur PRO2 - USB 2.0
According to iStorage, the diskAshur PRO2 is capable of reading at 148 MB/s and writing at 140 MB/s when connected to a USB 3.1 port. While the drive performed well, it came up a bit short of these numbers in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write speed tests.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the diskAshur PRO2's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
When connected to the computer's USB 3.1 port, the diskAshur PRO2 had average read and write speeds of 105.7 MB/s and 105.4 MB/s, respectively, as well as a burst speed of 184.1 MB/s. The drive wasn't nearly as fast when using USB 2.0 though. Compared to what we saw with USB 3.1, the diskAshur PRO2's average read and write speeds dropped by more than 68 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the diskAshur PRO2's sequential read and write speeds. The test was run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 iStorage diskAshur PRO2 - USB 3.1 |
 iStorage diskAshur PRO2 - USB 2.0 |
The diskAshur PRO2's read speeds topped out at about 133 MB/s and its write speeds at 139 MB/s when connected using USB 3.1.
