Legacy Tests

Compared to the Cheetah 36LP, the Cheetah 18LP AV does quite well in our old-testbed comparisons. The Business Disk WinMark 99 run in either Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 reveals comparable performance between the two drives with the 18LP AV actually pulling ahead, albeit by a miniscule 1%. The High-End Disk WinMark 99, however, places the 36LP ahead with the 18LP AV falling behind by margins of 4%-9%.

A more interesting comparison arises when contrasting the Cheetah 18LP AV with the original Cheetah 18LP. Regular SR readers may recall an article we published last year comparing a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 5120 featuring a 512k buffer with the same drive featuring 1 meg of cache. The differences proved to be negligible.

Such is not the case, however, when it comes to the 18LP AV vs. the original 18LP (at least according to WinBench). Here we find that though both drives share identical low-level measurements, the 18LP AV displays substantial improvements when it comes to the higher-level WinMarks.

The Business Disk WinMark 99 run in either Windows 95 or NT 4.0 places the 18LP AV ahead of the 18LP by margins of 7%-9%. High-End Disk WinMark differences are also pronounced, the 18LP AV being just 4% faster in NT but a substantial 12% swifter in Win95.

The question is begged: What's different in this situation that creates these noticeable differences when no such distinction could be made with the DiamondMax Plus tests? Here's a list to chew on:

• 2x difference between the DiamondMaxes; 4x difference between the Cheetahs
• ATA DiamondMaxes; SCSI Cheetahs (we don't believe this would be a factor, however)
• The DiamondMaxes had the same interfaces, both being ATA-33; the Cheetahs differ with the 18LP featuring an Ultra2 interface while the 18LP AV is an Ultra160/m drive
• Firmware unchanged in the larger-buffer DiamondMax; Firmware specifically tweaked in the 18LP AV to take advantage of the larger buffer?

 Conclusion...