WB99/Win2k WinMarks
Let me begin this section by introducing an interesting quandary...
Folks may remember the difficulty we had in revising the 5400rpm slot of our Leaderboard during our 2nd anniversary blitz. We'd decided to go with two major performance measures, WinBench 99 and IOMeter.
The drive that performed best in WinBench 99 was Western Digital's 10 GB/platter Caviar. Interestingly, however, the Caviar places near the bottom in IOMeter measures!
On the other hand, the best performing drives in IOMeter were Quantum's Fireball lct series. These drives, though, fare poorly in WinBench!
Since we give more weight to IOMeter results rather than those for WB99, the Fireball lct10 reigns as our current 5400rpm champ. Nevertheless, we realize that many readers value and weigh WB99 results very highly when considering drive purchases. Thus, to compare the DiamondMax 60 to the Fireball lct10 alone (a poor WB99 performer) would yield an unusually high contrast. A comparison with WD's Caviar is better warranted.
Comparing the DM60's performance to the Caviar in IOMeter, however, would imply that the WD drive set the previous 5400rpm mark... untrue, since that distinction remains with the Fireball lct.
We've therefore decided to depart from our usual practice of comparing a reviewed drive with our current leaderboard incumbent and instead moved to compare the DM60 with the drives that previously scored best in the respective benchmarks.
Without further ado, let's look at high-end WinBench 99 results.
