X-bit labs

Maxtor OneTouch II External Hard Disk Drive with FireWire 800 Interface (page 4)

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

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

Performance in WinBench 99

Before offering you the numbers we got in WinBench 99, we want to show you the following data-transfer graphs.

USB 2.0

FireWire 400

FireWire 800

These diagrams clearly show how the interfaces differ in efficiency. With USB 2.0, we have an ideally flat line instead of the expected “steps”. This line goes at a 33MB/s mark which almost coincides with the data-transfer rate promised by the manufacturer. In other words, the speed of the drive suffers from the low bandwidth of the USB 2.0 connection. Those “steps” can be seen on the FireWire400 diagram: a flat line going at 41MB/s ends in them and this is an indication of better use of the drive’s speed potential. And lastly, the FireWire800 diagram is similar to what we would see if we used an ATA interface: we’ve got numerous steps that start at 65MB/s.