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|
Date |
: Sept 17th, 2001 |
| Category |
: Storage |
| Manufacturer |
: Seagate |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
|
| HDD |
Disk
Access Time |
Disk
Read/Transfer Rate |
| Beginning |
End |
| IBM
Deskstar 60GXP (40.0GB ATA-100) |
12.3 |
39800 |
21100 |
| Quantum
Fireball Plus AS (20.0GB ATA-100) |
13.5 |
36000 |
21100 |
| Seagate
Barracuda ATA II (30.0GB ATA-100) |
13.3 |
29700 |
19900 |
| Seagate
Barracuda ATA IV (80.0GB ATA-100) |
14.9 |
42500 |
27200 |
The Barracuda ATA IV clocks in at 14.9ms, generally lagging the competition by roughly 1.5ms. Subtracting 4.2ms of rotational latency yields a measured seek time of 10.7ms, or 12% off Seagate's claim of 9.5ms. To be fair however, this is the most common occurrence amongst all drive manufacturers.
What the Barracuda lacks in seek time, it makes up in Sequential Transfer Rates (STRs). It practically reaches out and smacks all drives on the back of the head, including even our performance king, the IBM Deskstar 60GXP. The Barracuda has a 7% (2.7MB/s) outer-zone STR advantage over the 60GXP. Its inner-zone STR is simply breathtaking, 27.2MB/s! This is a full 30% or 6.1MB/s faster than both the 60GXP and Quantum Fireball Plus AS.
Business applications depend more on a drive's transfer rate rather than its average seek time. Seek time factors more heavily into server applications performance, or applications which incur fairly constant disk access. Therefore in theory, the Barracuda ATA IV should be the top contender in the higher-level WinBench 99 Disk WinMarks.
True of false? Let's scrutinize the cold, hard data.
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