Toshiba HDDs

Super Slimline MK8025GAS

This drive is the biggest (in capacity) among all 2.5” models from Toshiba – 80GB. The drive uses four heads and two platters with the maximum data density of 40GB. The buffer is 8MB big. I can’t call this one a fast model, since its spindle rotates at 4,200rpm only. Of course, this drive will not be a record-breaking racer among 2.5” models. The average seek time is 15msec for this drive, and the latency equals 7.14msec. The drive absorbs an operational shock of 190g and non-operational shock of 800g. It works with the ATA-6 interface.

Among its technical specifications available on the manufacturer’s website I can only point out the fluid dynamic bearings. Combined with the slow rotational speed this means the drive will produce ess noise at work.

This hard disk drive is priced at $220.

Testbed and Methods

To have an insight into the potential capabilities of the drives reviewed today, we preferred to cling to the testing methodology we usually keep in store for desktop HDDs.

We used the following benchmarking software:

• WinBench 99 2.0;
• FC-Test 0.5.3;
• IOMeter 2003.02.15.

The testbed was configured as follows:

• Albatron PX865PE Pro mainboard;
• Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz CPU;
• IBM DTLA-307015 system HDD, 15GB;
• RADEON 7000 32MB graphics card;
• 256MB DDR SDRAM;
• Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 installed.