X-bit labs

300GB Storage Devices: Which One is Better? (page 12)

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 06/08/2004 | 02:53 PM ]

Conclusion

The testing session is over and its main outcome is the statement that the fastest and cheapest data reservoir of 300GB storage capacity is the Maxtor MaXLine II 5A300J0 hard disk drive. Well, I can’t say this is a surprise and you may also doubt the convenience of use of this drive in everyday work. Among the rest of the tested devices, the Maxtor MaXLine II 5A300J0 installed into the STLab rack is preferable as concerns performance, especially when it is connected across a FireWire interface. As we noted several times, it is faster than the Maxtor OneTouch drive, probably due to the lower access time of the ATA device. On the other hand, we can make this conclusion by only those tests that this configuration really passed through to the end. It is quite probable that you’ll meet similar problems with the drive installed into the STLab rack in ordinary applications, not only benchmarks. This instability is probably due to the controller of the rack, which is also very costly. Adding the price of the hard disk drive itself, I don’t think this configuration has any economical benefits over the external OneTouch device. Of course, there are numerous other containers in the market, and cheaper ones, but their stability needs testing.

The Maxtor OneTouch drive passed all the tests, without giving us a single cause to question its reliability. Its cost is even lower than that of the kit of a MaXLine II 5A300J0 drive and a STLab rack. I think these two facts – stability and price – make it a preferable buy, even despite its slightly lower performance compared to the above-mentioned kit.

As for the choice of interface in external drives, FireWire (IEEE1394) once again proved its superiority over USB 2.0 in a number of tests.