All four Storage Benchmarks have settings you can change before starting the test.

Select drive

Select the drive you want to benchmark from the dropdown menu. Click on Refresh list after connecting an external drive if the drive is not visible in the dropdown.

Select custom path

Use this setting to benchmark a specific folder, for example, a network shared folder.

Power plan

There is a considerable difference in storage performance with Balanced and High-Performance power profiles. Disabling C-states in the BIOS can improve performance further. To ensure that benchmark results are comparable across systems, we recommend using PCMark 10's built-in custom power scheme when benchmarking.

The Power plan setting modifies the current power plan with the recommended settings for the test while the benchmark is running. This setting is enabled by default.  

When enabled, the benchmark makes the following changes during the benchmark run: 

  1. The benchmark creates a new power scheme by duplicating the current one.
  2. The custom power scheme is modified by changing the following settings: 
    1. GUID_PROCESSOR_THROTTLE_MAXIMUM is set to 100 
    2. GUID_PROCESSOR_THROTTLE_MINIMUM is set to 100 
    3. GUID_PROCESSOR_IDLE_DEMOTE_THRESHOLD is set to 100 
    4. GUID_PROCESSOR_IDLE_PROMOTE_THRESHOLD is set to 100 
  3. When the timed part of the benchmark is about to run, the benchmark activates the custom profile then waits 100ms before proceeding. 
  4. Once a timed part is finished, the default scheme is activated to allow the system to cool down. 
  5. Steps 3 and 4 are repeated for all traces, passes and phases.
  6. At the end of the benchmark, the default power scheme is activated and the custom scheme is deleted.

Drive info

The Drive info panel displays information about the selected drive.

  • Drive model
  • Serial number
  • File system
  • External drive (yes/no)
  • Partition number
  • Driver size
  • Free space