WinBench 99 measures the Atlas 10k III's
access time at 7.9 milliseconds... identical to its predecessor. As a result, subtracting 3 ms of
rotational latency yields a measured seek time of 4.9 milliseconds, a bit off of Maxtor's 4.5 ms claim. Even so, the 10k III's times come in more than half a millisecond lower than
Seagate's Cheetah 73LP.
Maxtor's outer-zone transfer rates weigh in at 53.9 MB/sec. The drive manages to maintain at least 50 MB/sec halfway through before eventually decaying to an inner-zone rate of 34.9 MB/sec. The Cheetah 73LP manages slightly higher rates on the outer zone as well as a much smoother graph overall.
WinMarks...
