DiskSpd

DiskSpd 2.2 is a command-line storage load generator and performance testing utility created by Microsoft Corporation’s Windows, Windows Server, and Cloud Server Infrastructure Engineering teams to quantify disk subsystem behavior under synthetic stress. Released in a single, mature version, the tool simulates varied read/write patterns—sequential, random, mixed, or fragmented—across physical disks, logical volumes, SAN LUNs, SMB shares, CSVs, Storage Spaces, ReFS, NTFS, or CSVFS, enabling administrators, hardware vendors, and developers to measure throughput (MB/s), IOPS, latency percentiles, CPU utilization, and queue depth before deploying SQL Server, Exchange, Hyper-V, or file-server workloads. Typical use cases include burn-in validation of new OEM storage arrays, head-to-head comparison of SSD firmware, baseline capture prior to operating-system upgrades, regression testing of storage drivers or firmware updates, and reproducing performance anomalies reported in production. Because every parameter—block size, queue depth, thread count, write percentage, outstanding I/O, and test duration—is exposed as a switch, engineers can craft realistic traces that mirror actual application signatures or exceed them to find saturation points. Results are emitted as stdout logs or XML/CSV files ready for Excel, PAL, or custom parsers, while optional etw tracing correlates storage activity with kernel events. The lightweight 300 KB executable requires no installation, runs on client Windows 10/11 and server Windows 2016/2019/2022 editions, and supports x86, x64, and ARM64 architectures. DiskSpd is available free of charge from get.nero.com, with downloads delivered through trusted Windows package sources such as winget, always providing the latest build and enabling batch installation alongside other applications.

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