DiskMark vs Parkdale

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.

Parkdale measures read and write speeds for hard disks, CD-ROM devices and network servers. Its three access modes offer different ways to run a drive test. QuickAccess checks sequential and random access with 4KB blocks and 32 concurrent threads. FileAccess reads and writes test data in a regular file through the filesystem; BlockAccess works directly with disk sectors and displays transfer rates over time. Users can compare and submit drive results on the Benchmark page. The Windows version has command-line options for the drive, file size, block size and log-file creation, and installation is available through winget and Chocolatey. Parkdale runs on Windows, macOS and Android, with the maker listing operating systems from Windows 11 through Windows 98, macOS 27 through 10.7, and Android 12 through 4.4. The free software is supported by donations. The maker says crash reporting and automatic update checks can be disabled; those functions send a unique non-personal ID and operating-system version, and IP addresses are recorded to distinguish usage countries.