Norton Utilities Premium
Performance Testing (November 2018)
Performance Benchmark
Edition 2

Document: Norton Utilities Premium Performance Testing (November 2018)
Authors:
M. Kankanige, D. Wren
Company: PassMark Software
Date:
29 November 2018
File:
Norton_Utilities_Performance_Testing.docx
Edition2

Norton Utilities Premium Performance Testing

PassMark Software

Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS......................................................................................................................................... 2
REVISION HISTORY............................................................................................................................................ 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................................... 4
OVERALL RESULTS ............................................................................................................................................. 5PERFORMANCE METRICS SUMMARY ................................................................................................................ 6
TEST RESULTS ................................................................................................................................................... 8
BENCHMARK 1 – BOOT TIME ..................................................................................................................................... 9
BENCHMARK 2 – BROWSER LOAD TIME ....................................................................................................................... 9
BENCHMARK 3 – FREE RAM AVAILABLE .................................................................................................................... 10
BENCHMARK 4 – CPU USAGE DURING SYSTEM IDLE .................................................................................................... 10
BENCHMARK 5 – FILE COPY, MOVE AND DELETE ......................................................................................................... 11
BENCHMARK 6 – USB 3.0 FILE COPY ........................................................................................................................ 11
DISCLAIMER AND DISCLOSURE ....................................................................................................................... 12
CONTACT DETAILS .......................................................................................................................................... 12
APPENDIX 1 – TEST ENVIRONMENT ................................................................................................................ 13
APPENDIX 2 – METHODOLOGY DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................. 15

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Revision History
Rev

Revision History

Date

Edition 1

Initial version of this report.

27 November 2018

Edition 2

Included list of applications/add-ons installed

28 November 2018

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Executive Summary
PassMark Software® conducted objective performance testing on Norton Utilities Premium, in Windows 10 (64bit) during November 2018. This report presents our findings as a result of performance benchmark testing
conducted on this product.
The aim of this report is to measure the performance improvements obtained from using Norton Utilities Premium(Version 17.0.0) to optimize the machine in two different test environments (Laptop with a HDD boot drive and a
Desktop with a SSD boot drive). To replicate a typical end user system, both machines were pre-installed with
commonly used programs (41) and browser add-ons (6).
Testing was performed on both systems using eight selected performance metrics.
Six of these tests were conducted before and after repairing the machines with Norton Utilities Premium to obtaina comparison between results. These performance metrics are as follows.
• Boot Time;• Browser Load Time;• Free RAM Available;• File Copy, Move and Delete;• File Copy USB 3.0 to Disk; and• CPU Usage During Idle.
The two other tests were conducted to obtain additional information regarding Norton Utilities Premium. These
performance metrics include:• Disk Space Recovered; and• Memory Usage During Idle.

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Overall Results
PassMark Software calculated percentage improvements for each test metric upon using the “Repair All” feature
on Norton Utilities Premium.
Following are the summarized performance improvements obtained from tests conducted on the two machines:

Test

Percentage Improvement
Desktop

LaptopBoot Time

31% Decrease

26% Decrease

Browser Load Time

4% Decrease

4% Decrease

Free RAM Available

3% Increase

6% Increase

0.96% Decrease

0.73% Decrease(28% Decrease as a percentage(45% Decrease as a percentagechange in utilization percentage)change in utilization percentage)

File Copy, Move and Delete

14% Decrease

18% Decrease

File Copy USB 3.0 to Disk

9% Decrease

7% Decrease

CPU Usage During System Idle

Test

ResultDesktop

LaptopMemory Usage During System Idle

3.66 MB6.72 MB

Disk Space Recovered

312.72 MB

610.48 MB

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Performance Metrics Summary
The following test metrics have been selected to highlight certain areas in which the product (Norton Utilities
Premium) has an impact on the system performance for end users, particularly areas involving common tasks that
end-users perform on a daily basis.
All of PassMark Software’s test methods can be replicated by third parties using the same environment to obtain
similar benchmark results. Detailed descriptions of the methodologies used in our tests are available as “Appendix
2 – Methodology Description” of this report.

Benchmark 1 – Boot Time
This metric measures the amount of time taken for the machine to boot into the operating system. With all thevarious applications installed in an end-user’s machine, it is common that multiple programs are launched at
Windows startup, adding an additional amount of time and delaying the startup of the operating system. An
improvement in boot time essentially means that the system starts up faster.

Benchmark 2 – Browser Load Time
This metric is one of many methods to objectively measure how much the product improves the impacts the
responsiveness of the system. This metric measures the amount of time it takes to launch the user interface ofMicrosoft Edge. To allow for caching effects by the operating system, both the initial launch time and thesubsequent launch times were measured. Our final result is an average of these two measurements.

Benchmark 3 – Free RAM Available
This metric evaluates the change in free RAM once the product completes its repairing process on the machine
under observation. The amount of RAM used during system idle provides a good indication of the amount ofsystem resources being consumed by programs on a permanent basis.

Benchmark 4 – CPU Usage during System Idle
The amount of load on the CPU while in an idle state may affect the end user experience as high loads slow down
the system. This metric measured the percentage of CPU used when the system is idle. With all the programs
installed in the system, it is common that these applications perform tasks in the background even while thesystem is assumed to be idle, thus slowing down the machine.

Benchmark 5 – File Copy, Move and Delete
This metric measures the amount of time taken to move, copy and delete a sample set of files. The sample file set
contains several types of file formats that a Windows user would encounter in daily use. These formats include
documents (e.g. Microsoft Office documents, Adobe PDF, Zip files, etc), media formats (e.g. images, movies andmusic) and system files (e.g. executables, libraries, etc).

Benchmark 6 – USB 3.0 File Copy
This test measures the amount of time taken to copy files from a USB 3.0 drive to a local disk. The data set
comprised a total file size of 6.06GB, and the formats used included documents, movies, system files andexecutables.
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Benchmark 7 – Memory Usage During System Idle
This metric measures the amount of memory (RAM) used by the product while the machine is in an idle state. The
total memory usage was calculated by identifying all the processes belonging to the product and the amount ofmemory used by each process.
The amount of memory used while the machine is idle provides a good indication of the amount of system
resources being consumed by the product on a permanent basis. Better performing products occupy less memory
while the machine is idle.

Benchmark 8 – Disk Space Recovered
This metric measures the amount of capacity recovered once the product completes its repairing process on thesystem.

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Test Results
The table below shows the averaged final set of results for each performance metric in the desktop environment:1

Test

Desktop
Before Norton
Utilities

After Norton Utilities

Percentage Change

Boot Time (s)

23.67

16.33

-31%

Browser Load Time (ms)1128.161085.74-4%Free RAM Available (GB)

5.55

5.74

3%

CPU Usage during Idle (%)

3.38%

2.43%

-0.96%

File Copy, Move and Delete (s)

3.99

3.43

-14%

File Copy USB 3.0 to Disk (s)

47.31

43.20

-9%

Memory Usage during Idle (MB)

N/A

3.66

N/A

Disk Space Recovered (MB)N/A

312.72

N/A

The table below shows the averaged final set of results for each performance metric in the laptop environment:2

Test

1

Laptop
Before Norton
Utilities

After Norton Utilities

Percentage Change

Boot Time (s)108.00

80.33

-26%

Browser Load Time (ms)3067.802937.63-4%

Free RAM Available (GB)

4.90

5.19

6%

CPU Usage during Idle (%)

1.61%

0.88%

-0.73%

File Copy, Move and Delete (s)

19.73

16.22

-18%

File Copy USB 3.0 to Disk (s)108.50101.26-7%

Memory Usage during Idle (MB)

N/A

6.72

N/A

Disk Space Recovered (MB)N/A

610.48N/A

Percentage change for “CPU Usage during Idle” on the desktop can be interpreted as -28% as a percentagechange in utilization percentage.
2

Percentage change for “CPU Usage during Idle” on the laptop can be interpreted as -45% as a percentage change

in utilization percentage.
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In the following charts, we have highlighted the results before (in blue) and after (in green) repairing bothmachines with Norton Utilities Premium.

Benchmark 1 – Boot TimeThe following charts compare the average time taken for the system to boot (from a sample of five boots) before
and after the product repairs each machine. Lower the boot time, better the performance.

Desktop

Laptop25

Seconds

Seconds

20
15
10
5
0
Before Norton
Utilities

120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Before Norton
Utilities

After Norton
Utilities

After Norton
Utilities

Benchmark 2 – Browser Load TimeThe following charts compare the average launch times of the Microsoft Edge after rebooting each machine,
before and after the product performs its repairing process. Lower the browser load time, better the performance.

Laptop

1140

3100

1120

3050

Milliseconds

Milliseconds

Desktop

1100
1080
1060

3000
2950
2900
2850

Before Norton
Utilities

Performance Benchmark

After Norton
Utilities

Before Norton
Utilities

After Norton
Utilities

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Benchmark 3 – Free RAM Available
The following charts compare the average amount of free RAM available in each machine when the system is in
an idle state. Higher the free RAM available, better the performance.

Laptop
5.2

5.8
5.7
5.7
5.6
5.6
5.5
5.5

5.1

GB

GB

Desktop

5.0
4.9
4.8
4.7

Before Norton
Utilities

After Norton
Utilities

Before Norton
Utilities

After Norton
Utilities

Benchmark 4 – CPU Usage during System Idle
The following charts compare the average CPU Usage when each machine is in an idle state, before and after
repairing the system with Norton Utilities Premium. Lower the CPU usage, better the performance.

Laptop

4.0%

2.0%

3.0%

1.5%

2.0%

1.0%

%

%

Desktop

0.5%

1.0%
0.0%

0.0%
Before Norton
Utilities

Performance Benchmark

After Norton
Utilities

Before Norton After Norton
Utilities
Utilities

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Benchmark 5 – File Copy, Move and Delete
The following charts compare the average time taken to copy, move and delete several sets of sample files onboth machines, before and after repairing the system with Norton Utilities Premium. Lower the time taken, betterthe performance.

Laptop

4.0

20.0

3.8

15.0

Seconds

Seconds

Desktop

3.6
3.4
3.2
3.0

10.0
5.0
0.0

Before Norton
Utilities

Before Norton After Norton
Utilities
Utilities

After Norton
Utilities

Benchmark 6 – USB 3.0 File Copy
The following charts compare the average time taken to copy a set of files from an external USB 3.0 drive to a local
disk, before and after repairing each machine with Norton Utilities Premium. Lower the time taken, better the
performance.

Desktop

Laptop46

Seconds

Seconds

48

44
42
40
Before Norton
Utilities

Performance Benchmark

After Norton
Utilities

110
108
106
104
102
100
98
96
Before Norton
Utilities

After Norton
Utilities

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Disclaimer and Disclosure
Disclaimer of Liability
While every effort has been made to ensure that the information presented in this report is accurate, PassMark
Software Pty Ltd assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or out-of-date information and shall not be liable
in any manner whatsoever for direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages resulting from theavailability of, use of, access of, or inability to use this information.

Disclosure
Symantec funded the production of this report. The testing environments and metrics included in the report wereselected by Symantec.

Trademarks
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact Details
PassMark Software Pty Ltd
Level 563 Foveaux St.
Surry Hills, 2010
Sydney, Australia
Phone + 61 (2) 9690 0444
Fax

+ 61 (2) 9690 0445

Web

www.passmark.com

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Appendix 1 – Test Environment
For our testing, PassMark Software used two test environments (Laptop and Desktop) running Windows 10 Home(64-bit) with the following hardware specifications:

Test Machine 1: Laptop
Model:
CPU:
Video Card:RAM:
HDD (Boot Drive):
2nd Drive:
O/S:

HP Envy 15-1067nr Notebook PC
AMD Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx
AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile Graphics
7892MB DDR4
HGST HTS721010A9E630 1000GB
Samsung SSD 960 EVO 250GB
Windows 10 Home 64bit

Test Machine 2: Desktop
Model:
CPU:
Video Card:RAM:
SSD (Boot Drive):
2nd Drive:
O/S:

Lenovo H50W-50 i5Intel Core i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz 3.20 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GT 705
8GB DDR3 RAM
Samsung 850 PRO 512GB
ST1000DM003 1000GB
Windows 10 Home 64bit

State of Clean Image
In order to test the performance benefits of Norton Utilities Premium, we installed a set of programs and browser
add-ons on top of the clean Windows 10 Home image of both test machines. Common programs were chosen to
replicate a typical end user system.
Listed below are 41 commonly used programs and 6 browser add-ons used for testing. It is noteworthy that theseapplications were installed with their default options:
List of Applications:
1. CyberGhost VPN
2. Adobe Acrobat Reader
3. AVG AV (Free)
4. Evernote
5. Aomei Backupper
6. Audials
7. AntiBrowserSpy
8. WonderShare
9. Bluestacks
10. Video Converter Ultimate
11. Lightshot
12. Maxthon Browser
13. McAfee TruKey
14. OverWolf
15. Pluto TV
16. SoundTouch
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17. VisualStudio Plus
18. Unchecky
19. Camtasia
20. Synology
21. FreeDownloadManager
22. Glasswire
23. Kodi
24. Steam
25. iTunes
26. Advanced Uninstaller
27. Quicktime
28. Microsoft Office
29. Adobe Flash Player
30. Google Chrome
31. Google Earth
32. Java Runtime
33. VLC Player
34. Skype
35. Dropbox
36. WinRar
37. Notepad++
38. Whatsapp for PC
39. Macrium Reflect
40. uTorrent
41. Daemon Tools Lite

Browser Add-Ons:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Save to Pocket
Evernote Web Clipper
Translator for Microsoft Edge
Nimble Contacts
Open in Private
Read & Write for Microsoft Edge

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Appendix 2 – Methodology Description
Benchmark 1 – Boot Time
PassMark Software uses tools available from the Windows Performance Toolkit (as part of the Microsoft Windows
10 ADK obtainable from the Microsoft Website).
The Boot Performance (Fast Startup) test is run as an individual assessment via the Windows Assessment Console.
The network connection is disabled and the login password is removed to avoid interruption to the test. The result
is taken as the total boot duration excluding BIOS load time.
For instances where the system never really reaches an idle state (due to background applications running
continuously), timing is done manually using a stopwatch.

Benchmark 2 – Browser Load TimeThe average launch time of Microsoft Edge interface was taken using AppTimer. This test was practically identicalto the User Interface launch time test. For each product tested, we obtained a total of fifteen samples from fivesets of three Edge launches, with a reboot before each set to clear caching effects by the operating system. Whencompiling the results, the first of each set was separated out so that there was a set of values for the initial launch
after reboot and a set for subsequent launches.
For this test, we have used Microsoft Edge (Version 42.17134.1.0) as our test browser.
We have averaged the subsequent launch times to obtain an average subsequent launch time. Our final result forthis test is an average of the subsequent launch average and the initial launch time.

Benchmark 3 – Free RAM Available
FreeRAM is a command-line tool which samples the amount of free RAM available every second. From this,
FreeRAM calculates and displays the average free RAM available for the interval of time for which it has been
active.
For this metric, FreeRAM was used to measure the free RAM available on average by the system while it is in an
idle state (Machine is left alone for 5 minutes before running the tool). The result is calculated as an average fivesets of 300 RAM usage samples.

Benchmark 4 – CPU Usage during Idle
CPUAvg is a command-line tool which samples the amount of CPU load approximately two times per second. From
this, CPUAvg calculates and displays the average CPU load for the interval of time for which it has been active.
For this metric, CPUAvg was used to measure the CPU load on average (as a percentage) by the system while an
On-Demand Scan is run on a sample data set. The result is calculated as an average five sets of thirty CPU usage
samples.

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Benchmark 5 – File Copy, Move and Delete
This test measures the amount of time required for the system to copy, move and delete samples of files in various
file formats. This sample was made up of 812 files over 760,867,636 bytes and can be categorized as documents[26% of total], media files [54% of total] and PE files (i.e. System Files) [20% of total].
The breakdown of the main file types, file numbers and total sizes of the files in the sample set is shown in thefollowing table:

Performance Benchmark

File format

NumberSize (bytes)

DOC

830,450,176

DOCX

4

13,522,409

PPT

3

5,769,216

PPTX

3

4,146,421

XLS

4

2,660,352

XLSX

4

1,426,054

PDF

73

136,298,049

ZIP

4

6,295,987

7Z

1

92,238JPG

351

31,375,259

GIF

6148,182MOV

7

57,360,371

RM

1

5,658,646

AVI

8

78,703,408

WMV

5

46,126,167

MP3

28

191,580,387

EXE

19

2,952,914

DLL

104

29,261,568

AX

118,432CPL

22,109,440

CPX

2

4,384

DRV

10

154,864

ICO

1

107,620MSC

141,587

NT

1

1,688

ROM

2

36,611SCR

22,250,240

SYS

1

37,528,093

TLB

3

135,580

TSK

1

1,152

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UCE

1

22,984EXE

192,952,914

DLL

104

29,261,568

AX

118,432CPL

22,109,440

CPX

2

4,384

DRV

10

154,864

ICO

1

107,620MSC

141,587

NT

1

1,688

ROM

2

36,611SCR

22,250,240

SYS

1

37,528,093

TLB

3

135,580

TSK

1

1,152

UCE

1

22,984

Total

812

760,867,636

This test was conducted five times to obtain the average time to copy, move and delete the sample files, with thetest machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.

Benchmark 6 – USB 3.0 File Copy
This test measures the amount of time taken to transfer files from an external drive to a local disk via a USB 3.0
connection. The data set comprised of 6,834 files with a total file size of 6.06GB, and the formats used included
documents, movies, images, executables and system files. A breakdown of the sample file set is given below:

Performance Benchmark

File Size

File

NumberExtensionof Files

.dll

1429

627MB

.doc

496

164MB

.docx

324

76MB

.exe

280

1.2GB

.jpg

1564

469MB

.mp3

394

1.06GB

.pdf

567

246MB

.pptx

556

1.06GB.pst

2

59.1MB

.sys

568

145MB

.xlsx

584

81.0MB

.zip

70

911MB

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A total of five runs of this test were performed, with a machine restart between each run. The time taken totransfer files was measured and recorded by CommandTimer.exe. Files were deleted from the local disk once thecopy was complete. The final result is calculated as an average of the five samples.

Benchmark 7 – Memory Usage During System Idle
The MemLog++ utility was used to record process memory usage on the system at boot, and then every minutefor another fifteen minutes after. This was done only once per product and resulted in a total of 15 samples. The
first sample taken at boot is discarded.
The MemLog++ utility records memory usage of all processes. As a result of this, the product’s processes need to
be isolated from all other running system processes. To isolate a relevant process, we used a program called
Process Explorer which was run immediately upon the completion of memory usage logging by MemLog++.
Process Explorer is a Microsoft Windows Sysinternals software tool which shows a list of all DLL processes currently
loaded on the system.

Benchmark 8 – Disk Space Recovered
Using PassMark’s OSForensics we created an initial and final disk signature allowing Norton Utilities Premium to
run its “Repair All” feature in-between these signature captures. These disk signatures recorded the amount offiles and directories, and complete details of all files on that drive (including file name, file size, checksum, etc) at
the time the signature was taken.
The initial disk signature was taken immediately prior to running the “Repair All” feature. A subsequent disk
signature was taken immediately following the repair process. Using OSForensics, we compared the two
signatures and calculated the total disk space consumed by files that were new, modified, and deleted during thisprocess. Our result for this metric reflects the overall difference in disk size (space recovered) after the executionof Norton Utilities Premium.

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