DiskMark vs fio

DiskMark is a Windows utility for benchmarking disks and hard drives. It lets users set advanced test options to assess drive performance and typical operating performance. The software is open source under the MIT License, and the maker says source code is available on GitHub and with version-specific releases. Its listed stable release is version 1.0.0.8, released on 2018-02-23; the release notes mention terminology changes and updated documentation. The release history runs from version 1.0.0.0 through 1.0.0.8. The latest listed release offers separate 32-bit and 64-bit Windows executables: DiskMark32.exe at 586.42 KB and DiskMark64.exe at 608.11 KB. The plan is free. The maker's site provides a Support section with a Contact link.

fio is a free command-line tool for simulating user-defined I/O workloads for performance testing and reproducing bugs. Users can describe a workload in a job file or set parameters on the command line, including I/O patterns, block and I/O sizes, engines, queue depth, target files or devices, and threads or processes. Results can be reported in normal, terse, JSON or JSON+ formats. fio can run as a backend server and receive jobs from clients on other hosts; its HTTP engine supports HTTP and S3 access. It supports random and sequential tests, IOPS and latency measurement, and platforms including Linux, macOS, Windows and several BSD variants. On Windows, the documented minimums are Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and Cygwin is required for building. The --readonly option is intended to prevent writes and trims; fio also aborts destructive jobs on devices that appear mounted unless allow_mounted_write is set. Root access is only needed when the selected files or devices require it. fio is free software under version 2 of the GNU GPL.