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6.4 GB Ultra ATA Drive Review
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IDE drives (more properly called ATA drives) have come a long way
since they were first introduced in 1985 as a replacement for the
ST-506/412 interface. Today, one can find 512k buffers, 5400 RPM
speeds, sub 10ms seek times, and the much ballyhooed UltraATA 33
MB/sec transfer rate. We also stand before yet another advance;
Seagate's latest Medalist Pro and IBM's Deskstar 14GXP promise 7200
RPM rotation speeds. As is often the case though, higher figures
in popularly quoted specs don't always seem to correlate to better
benchmark figures. Although there are some 8 GB drives available
and many >8 GB products have been announced, the 6.4 GB capacity
is the highest at which every major manufacturer is currently shipping
at least one drive.
Storage Review began testing these drives using Intel's PIIX v3.01
Bus Mastering Drivers. After the initial benchmarking was completed,
however, we found, as have many others, that the default drivers
in Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 provide better performance with
DMA enabled.
For this test, we used an Abit LX6 motherboard (v1.1, bios v C7Q),
a 266 MHz Intel Pentium II processor, a 64MB 10ns SDRAM DIMM, and
a Matrox Millennium II PCI 4MB (bios v1.2, Powerdesk v3.80). The
boot drive (Western Digital Caviar AC31600) contained Windows 95
OSR 2.1 patched with Intel's 82371xB INF Update and Microsoft's
REMIDEUP.EXE fix. The test drive in question was the sole device
located on the secondary controller built into the motherboard.
The drive's DMA box under System Properties' Device Manager was
checked. The tests were run at 1024x768 with 24 bit color at 85
Hz using small fonts. Here is a link to the test
bed information. All drives were formatted with Fat 32 to the
largest possible drive size. ZDBop's Startup Manager was used to
prevent the loading of background applications. ZDBop's WinBench
98 v1.0's Disk Test Suites were run on all test drives. These test
results represent the average of five runs.
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Quantum Bigfoot TX
| Quantum Bigfoot TX |
A notable omission in this
review is Quantum's Bigfoot TX 6.4GB unit. The 5.25" form-factor
Bigfoot is positioned as a low-cost alternative to traditional
3.5" low-profile drives. The Bigfoot is not intended to
be a high-performance drive, however, and lags significantly
behind 3.5" drives in performance. Nevertheless, Storage
Review readers may be very interested in its performance. The
Bigfoot is the drive most commonly found in major retail-brand
systems such as Compaq and Hewlett-Packard. Storage Review plans
to take a look at the Bigfoot TX in the near future.
Quantum
Bigfoot TX Specifications
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· Seagate Medalist Pro ST36451A
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Ziff Davis WinBench 98 - Seagate Medalist Pro ST36451A
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| Business Disk WinMark
98 |
1210 KB/sec
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| SS/Database
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1044 KB/sec
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| WP |
1492 KB/sec
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| Publishing
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1146 KB/sec
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Browsers |
1322 KB/sec
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| Task Switching
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1676 KB/sec
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| High-End Disk WinMark
98 |
3498 KB/sec
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| AVS/Express
3.1 |
2146 KB/sec
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| Frontpage
97 |
3126 KB/sec
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| Microstation
95 |
6648 KB/sec
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| Photoshop
4.0 |
2570 KB/sec
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| Premiere
4.2 |
6086 KB/sec
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| PV-Wave
6.1 |
2586 KB/sec
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| Visual C++
5.0 |
8056 KB/sec
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| Disk/Read Random Access
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16.7 ms |
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| Disk/Read Transfer Rate
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| Beginning
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7866 KB/sec
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| End |
5032 KB/sec
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| Disk/Read CPU Utilization
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4.0%
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| Transfer
Rate |
7872 KB/sec
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| In some ways, Seagate's Medalist Pro is similar to Quantum's
Fireball SE. Although a recognized name, Seagate does not have
a strong retail presence. Like the Fireball, the Medalist Pro
is competitively priced. In some ways, the Medalist Pro is very
different from the Fireball SE. Instead of the paltry 128k buffer,
for example, it offers an ATA-hefty 512k. And, unlike the Fireball,
the Medalist Pro disappoints with substandard performance. The
drive finished close to the bottom of the pack, ahead of only
the last-place Fujitsu drive. The ST36451A is apparently being
phased out in favor of the promising 7200rpm Medalist Pro series.
Seagate's current offering, though, cannot be recommended. |
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· Western Digital Caviar AC36400
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Ziff Davis WinBench 98 - Western Digital Caviar AC36400
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| Business Disk WinMark
98 |
1218 KB/sec
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| SS/Database
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1042 KB/sec
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| WP |
1488 KB/sec
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| Publishing
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1162 KB/sec
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Browsers |
1384 KB/sec
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| Task Switching
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1628 KB/sec
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| High-End Disk WinMark
98 |
3532 KB/sec
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| AVS/Express
3.1 |
2192 KB/sec
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| Frontpage
97 |
2880 KB/sec
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| Microstation
95 |
6738 KB/sec
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| Photoshop
4.0 |
2710 KB/sec
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| Premiere
4.2 |
6562 KB/sec
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| PV-Wave
6.1 |
2664 KB/sec
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| Visual C++
5.0 |
7456 KB/sec
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| Disk/Read Random Access
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16.5 ms |
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| Disk/Read Transfer Rate
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| Beginning
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10300 KB/sec
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| End |
6110 KB/sec
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| Disk/Read CPU Utilization
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5.2%
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| Transfer
Rate |
10288 KB/sec
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| The Western Digital Caviar drive series enjoys both wide
retail distribution along with a stellar retail reputation.
Western Digital prides itself on being the "world's most
recommended hard drive." However, middling performance
and noisy operation combine to preclude Storage Review from
joining the rest of the world. If ATA performance is one's goal
IBM's Deskstar 5 outdistances the Caviar by a significant margin,
albeit at an increase in cost. Quantum's Fireball SE, although
harder to find, offers better performance for less money. Maxtor's
DiamondMax, the retail twin of the Caviar, can be just as easily
obtained, usually costs a bit less, and provides slightly better
performance. The most notable trait of the Caviar was the noise
the actuator/head
assembly made when seeking; it was substantially louder than
every other drive in this roundup. All in all, the Caviar delivers
mediocre performance at a rather high price, and thus is not
recommended. |
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* Note: All reported test results are
the average of five trials.
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