40GB Roundup Vol 1 - Page 5

IPEAK/Heat Tests

- Combined Read/Writing Tests

Intel's IPEAK test results combine both reading/writing actions and give a weighted score based upon each drive performance in each specific task. The height of each bar is the measured mean service time per disk access for a drive stimulated with I/Os from the given workload. Shorter bars represent better performance. As we will see a drive that scores well in the "Desktop" test doesn't mean that will perform the same as the "Server" mode, since the I/O operations are different.

At the above picture, the weighted (Average) score of all tested drive is shown up. The drive with the best behaviour under for the Intel's IPEAK "Desktop" test comes from IBM. The drives weighted score is 1.73. The Western Digital comes second at the "Desktop" but first at the "Server" test. The Maxtor 740DX comes also first at the "Server" test, with 1.67ms, and gets one of the last places at the "Desktop" with 2.02ms. The FujiTsu comes forth at the Desktop and last at the Server test. The Seagate Barracuda ATA III has the worst values in both Server/Desktop tests.

IPEAK test results are downloadble for all drives (Maxtor, Fujitsu, IBM, WD, Seagate)

- Heat Tests

The following graph shows each drive temperature under the same workloads and running time:

As we can see, the Western Digital WD400BB drive had the highest temperature among the four tested drives. Of course the difference with the rest drives is not that high but the IBM/Maxtor and Fujitsu drives seem to have slight better behaviour.