We shouldn’t also disregard the possibility to disable certain firmware algorithms in L0 HDDs, again because of the too small cache-buffer. I would like to let you, our readers, discuss this topic. I would only like to point out that 6Y120P0 models haven’t shown any grave performance drops on the read-write graphs, which should be pretty typical of them, actually. Here are the pictures I am talking about:

6Y120L0-60 read graph

6Y120P0-60 read graph

These screenshots show very clearly the difference between the graphs (both: read and write graphs). They are smoother for P0 than for L0, as you may have noticed. The models with 80GB platters have the same type of graphs.

The minimal speed ratio remained the same for writing operations. As in the previous case, L0 models are almost twice as slow. During writing the models, which is supposed to be the fastest, yields to its counterpart with less dense platters in maximum speed. Though in this case the reason for the phenomenon has more to do with HDTach measuring errors. Hopefully, the next benchmark version will be free from these “special effects”.

And the leadership in the most important average value is again by the models with large per platter density.

Well, it looks as if we have now got the first surprise. And maybe this is no surprise at all? The hard disk drives with high platter density perform worse than their counterparts with 60GB platters. Although if we think a bit more indepth about the reasons for this phenomenon, we could suppose that even though the platters got denser, the rest of the HDD remained almost the same, as well as the way these platters are arranged. So the increase in the access time is a pretty logical solution.

One way or another, we can state the following: 120GB HDDs behave just the same as their predecessors tested in the previous review. Moreover, the models with lower data density are ahead in the access time tests, while those with higher data density – in sequential read and write speed tests. I should also point out that the read/write graphs for P0 models are smoother.