The lower access time of Maxtor's
DiamondMax 60 gives it a considerable advantage over the WD450AA in
Linear and
Very Light loads when it comes to
Workstation performance. Under such conditions, we find the WD drive trailing the Maxtor by about 7%.
Under any heavier load, however, firmware optimizations start to muddy the picture. Light, Medium and Heavy scenarios all suggest virtually equal performance, with the WD actually pulling ahead by a negligible amount under Medium loads. Thus, for most purposes, IOMeter concurs with WinBench 99, placing the two drives on practically equal grounds.
We should take a moment to note that neither the WD or the Maxtor can deliver the performance scored by Quantum's "value-class" Fireball lct10. Of course, a converse scenario is also true... the Fireball doesn't score nearly as well as the WD and Maxtor in WinBench. It should, of course, be clear to readers that we heavily favor IOMeter due to WinBench 99's advancing age and increasingly inconsistent hypotheses.
Conclusion...
