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|
Date |
: Sept 19th, 2001 |
| Category |
: Storage |
| Manufacturer |
: Western Digital |
| 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 IV (80.0GB ATA-100) |
14.9 |
42500 |
27200 |
| Western
Digital Caviar WD1000BB (100.0GB ATA-100) |
13.7 |
41400 |
27700 |
The Caviar WD1000BB clocks in at 13.7ms. While it is nearly at the bottom the pack, please keep in mind that the seek time amongst nearly all current generation 7200 RPM drives are in the 13.Xms region so a difference of 0.2ms is hardly monumental. Subtracting 4.2ms of rotational latency yields a measured seek time of 9.5ms, about 6%off Western Digital's claim of 8.9ms.
Sequential Transfer Rates (STRs) are quite a different matter altogether. No doubt the Deskstars have are in a class of their own for seek times, the WD1000BB has a 4% (1.6MB/s) outer-zone STR advantage over the 60GXP, placing it in second place behind the Seagate Barracuda ATA IV. The Caviar's inner-zone STR is simply breathtaking, 27.7MB/s! This is a full 32% or 6.6MB/s faster than our previous performance king, the Deskstar 60GXP, and effectively up ends the Barracuda ATA IV's lead.
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 Caviar WD1000BB should be a top contender in the higher-level WinBench 99 Disk WinMarks, with the Barracuda ATA IV being the drive to beat.
Fact or fiction? The hard data will reveal all.
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