The Fireball Plus AS'
access time measures out at a disappointing 13.2 milliseconds, nearly 2 ms greater than that of its predecessor. Subtracting 4.2 milliseconds of
rotational latency yields a measured
seek time of 9.0 milliseconds. Thus, rather than handily beating its spec as its predecessors did, the AS actually comes in a bit behind. Granted, 13.2 milliseconds isn't an awful score... the only drive in the AS' class, the
WD400BB, scores 13.9ms. Even so, the AS fails to meet the lofty expectations set by its precursors.
The Fireball's outer-zone sequential transfer rate of 35.3 MB/sec is decent, though not enough to dethrone the Deskstar 75GXP as the fastest we've measured from an ATA drive. Inner track rates drop to 20.7 MB/sec, somewhat slower than Western Digital's WD400BB.
Let's see how these figures translate into the higher-level WinMarks.
WinMarks...
