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AIDA32:::...
AIDA32
was the second addition to our hard drive testing
regime based on the fact that it seems to be generally
more robust and reliable than the alternatives.
Linear
Read Results
Western Digital WD2500JD
Western Digital WD800JB
Maxtor D740X
To say I was surprised
by these results is an understatement. High
maximum CPU usage and generally low sequential read
speeds make the Maxtor look less than appealing in
this test. The WD2500JD managed an awesome 47.3MB/sec
average.
Random
Read Results
Western Digital WD2500JD
Western Digital WD800JB
Maxtor D740X
Here again we
see Western Digital leading the way with the WD800JB
and the WD2500JD averaging 39.0 and 47.5 MB/sec, way
ahead of the Maxtor's 33.5MB/sec.
Buffered
Read Results
This time the tables turn as the Maxtor
shows its worth with the highest buffered reads. With
only a 2MB buffer though it should be noted that the
Maxtor probably spends a much lower percentage of
its time retrieving data from its buffers than the
8MB Western Digitals do.
The 2500 clearly trails the 800 in this
test based on buffered 64k data reads.
Western Digital WD2500JD
Western Digital WD800JB
Maxtor D740X
Average
Access Results
Access times have never been a jewel
in WD's crown for some reason and here again we see
both drives trail the Maxtor in average access times.
The 2500 does show a small improvement over the 800
though which is a move in the right direction.
Western Digital WD2500JD
Western Digital WD800JB
Maxtor D740X
Linear
Write Results
Because of the change in test procedure
and the increasing and damned frustrating trend for
just about everyone to take their hardware back after
the review's complete, I didn't have a drive on which
to perform comparison write tests. To do this the
drive needs to be completely free of data and not
partitioned, unfortunately all the drives here are
powering test systems of some description and so have
data on them.
I still wanted to run these tests though
even if only for future comparisons, so here they
are, and yes the linear write really did take 85 minutes
to complete :( :
Western Digital WD2500JD
Random
Write Results
Western Digital WD2500JD
If you consider that something like
DV video from yout digital camcorder requires a sustained
write of about 3.6 MB/sec, or 6MB/sec to play safe,
you can see that there's plenty of headroom for your
video editing needs without resorting to RAID. And
with a 250GB capacity this drive really is a great
candidate for video work.
As an interesting sidenote, Adobe's
recommended specs for DV in Premiere 6.0 for Windows
is:
-- Seek time: 18 milliseconds (ms) maximum
(16 ms recommended)
-- Read speed: 8 MB/s minimum (12 MB/s recommended)
-- CPU utilization: 5% maximum
-- Average data rate: 5 MB/s minimum
I used this particular drive for a variety
of testing while trying to formulate a plan for future
testing and that included video capture, DVD ripping
and much more and although the results weren't suitable
to be used as accurate benchmarks the drive performed
flawlessly in each situation.
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