In the assorted write test, the Western Digital Raptor com¬pleted the test in the least pos¬sible time. The 10K spindle speed coupled with low access times helps it achieve this feat. Western Digital Caviar 320 GB and Seagate's 7200.11 500 GB were next set of drives to com¬plete the file transfer. All other drives took 4 to 5 seconds more than these two drives to complete the test. The 80 GB and 160 GB from Seagate took 43 seconds more, and were way behind all drives. These two drives are seriously handicapped and should be avoided.

Almost all drives did well on the Assorted Read test, and delivered consistent results, taking approximately 83 sec¬onds to read 4 GB of data. In the partition-to-partition file copy test, WD's caviar 320GB com¬pleted the feat in the least time. In this test, the buffer memory makes all the difference. However, apart from buffer size, buffer speed also dictates the final outcome. For example, the Seagate's 7200.11 has a 32-MB buffer. However, these are out¬done by the 7200.10 Seagate drives and we presume it is due to the buffer speed.

The sequential read I write test results are similar to the assorted read I write test results. However, in sequential partition-to-parti tion file transfer, the Western Digital Caviar 320 GB takes the pole position dethroning Raptor. The other drives put up reasonably good performance, barring the two Seagate's namely 80 and 160 GB.