X-bit labs

Maxtor OneTouch II External Hard Disk Drive with FireWire 800 Interface

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 09/01/2005 | 09:30 AM ]

Do you need a high-performance external hard disk drive? Then you should definitely check out the new Maxtor solution supporting FireWire800 interface that ensures very high data-transfer rates: comparable with what you have with standard hard disk drives connected via ATA or Serial ATA interfaces.

Table of contents:

• Closer Look at Maxtor OneTouch II FireWire800 200GB
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance in Intel IOMeter: Sequential Read & Write Patterns
  
• Performance in WinBench 99
  
• Performance in FC-Test
  
• Conclusion
  

A single performance-limiting factor of external hard disk drives has always been their interface. Such popular interfaces as USB 2.0 and FireWire400 just cannot provide enough bandwidth for the hard drive to show its best performance.

Of course, this is not a big problem in many cases since external drives usually play the role of an auxiliary data-storage device, being used for data backup or as a means of transportation of information from one computer to another, but if you do want the highest performance from your external drive, you should find one with support of the not very popular yet FireWire800 interface. This interface is going to save a lot of your time if you’re dealing with big amounts of data.

In this review we will discuss one such solution, a FireWire800-supporting external hard disk drive from Maxtor.

Closer Look at Maxtor OneTouch II FireWire800 200GB

The drive looks just like any other model from the same family. You can see the manufacturer’s name in large letters on the case which is made of silver-colored aluminum.