by Andrey Kuznetcov
09/01/2005 | 09:30 AM
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.
<%BANNER[article]%>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.
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.
The OneTouch button that starts a data backup task has an integrated LED indicator of the drive’s operational mode. A power switch, a power connector, one USB 2.0 port, one FireWire400 port, and two FireWire800 ports are located on the rear panel of the device. A cooling fan is also located there.
The capacity of the drive is 200GB; its buffer is 8 megabytes big (the senior model from this series has a 300GB capacity and a 16MB buffer). The spindle rotation speed is 7200rpm; the access time is less than 9 milliseconds. The main feature of this device is its support of three interfaces which guarantee that you can connect the drive to almost any existing computer. The popular USB 2.0 interface has a theoretical bandwidth of 480Mbit/s and, according to the manufacturer, allows up to 34MB/s data-transfer rates in practice. The theoretical bandwidth of FireWire400 (IEEE 1394a) and FireWire800 (IEEE 1394b) interfaces is 400 and 800Mbit/s, respectively. In reality, 42MB/s and 64MB/s data-transfer rates are achievable. It means that users can utilize the speed potential of this hard disk drive more fully if they connect it via FireWire800. The dimensions of the device are 41x140x210mm; its weight is 1.38kg.
The accessories to the drive include a USB cable, a 6-pin FireWire400 cable, a 9-pin FireWire800 cable, a power adapter with a cord, a stand to position the drive vertically, a Quick Start Guide, a warranty coupon and a software CD (with Maxtor OneTouch drivers and utilities, and Dantz Retrospect Express HD).
The average price of this drive is $250.
We tested the drive in the following benchmarks:
The testbed was configured like follows:
The USB 2.0 interface of the drive was tested using one of the mainboard’s ports. FireWire400 and FireWire800 interfaces were provided by PCI controllers IEEE 1394b (on Texas Instruments TSB82AA2 chip) and IEEE 1394a (on Texas Ins. TSB12LV26 chip).
First we will measure sequential read and write speeds in IOMeter. The drive was processing a stream of read/write requests with a request queue depth of 4; the data block size was changed every minute. As a result, we can see the dependence of the drive’s sequential read/write speed on the size of the processed data block. Then we can compare these data for each interface.
The diagram shows you how the interface type can affect the linear read speed of the drive. The FireWire800 interface is beyond competition: the read speed is steadily increasing up to 16KB data blocks and then reaches its ceiling at about 63MB/s. FireWire400 is the second most efficient interface of the three, ensuring a noticeably higher speed than with USB 2.0.
The write speed diagram depicts another triumph of the FireWire800 interface – no comments are necessary. The drive is much faster with this interface than with the other two between which FireWire400 is better than USB 2.0.
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.
Now let’s compare the performance of the drive with its three different interfaces. First, we performed the test on a 32GB partition.
The FireWire800 interface is much better than the other two interfaces in NTFS (we mean the more important High-End Disk WinMark parameter in the first place). The FireWire400 interface in its turn is more efficient than USB 2.0.
There’s a tougher competition as concerns the second parameter, Business Disk WinMark. FireWire400 is a little better than FireWire800 here.
The drive performs overall faster as we switch to FAT32 and FireWire800 again has a much higher High Disk WinMark score than the other two interfaces while FireWire400 in its turn is better than USB 2.0.
As for the Business Disk WinMark parameter, FireWire400 is a little better than FireWire800, again.
This time we check the data-transfer rate on the entire capacity of the drive. The diagram is an illustration of different efficiency of the interfaces: FireWire800 is the best, followed by FireWire400. USB 2.0 is the least efficient interface of the three.
The last of WinBench 99 diagrams shows you the measured access time parameter. It is roughly the same with any interface and is considerably higher than the declared access time. This discrepancy must be due to the drive’s using a quiet mode of operation for its heads.
As always, FC-Test is the last of our tests. Being indicative of the real-life performance of hard disk drives, this benchmarking tool measures the time it takes to create (i.e. to write), to read and to copy a few sets of files that differ in the size and number of files included. Knowing this time we can calculate the speed of the drive.
The Windows and Programs patterns consist of many smaller files, while the other three patterns include several large files. Two 32GB partitions are created on the drives for the copy operations and the file patterns are first copied within the same partition (copy near) and then from one partition to another (copy far).
We begin with the NTFS results.
The first diagram shows the speed of creating (writing) the file patterns. As you see, the drive delivers the highest speed when connected via FireWire800, especially when writing large files. FireWire400 is second best, being preferable to USB 2.0 across all the patterns.
FireWire800 wins again, being less of a bottleneck than the other two interfaces. FireWire400 is less efficient, but works faster than USB 2.0 in four patterns out of five.
The next diagram shows the speed of the drive at copying files within one partition. Once again, FireWire800 proves to be the best interface. FireWire400 outperforms USB 2.0 in three patterns out of five. It is only at copying patterns with numerous small files that FireWire400 isn’t much better than USB 2.0 since the interface bandwidth becomes less important in this case.
It’s only in the copy far test that the FireWire800 interface doesn’t boast an overwhelming advantage over its opponents: the drive is slower with FireWire800 than with FireWire400 in the Install pattern. The USB 2.0 interface, however, remains the slowest of the three.
Now let’s check the performance of the drive when it is formatted in FAT32.
The first diagram shows you the speed of creating (writing) files. The FireWire800 interface triumphs here, again. The drive shows its highest speed when connected through it. The other two interfaces are considerably slower, and FireWire400 is somewhat better than USB 2.0.
The drive’s performance varies depending on the interface much in the file reading test, too. When attached via FireWire400, it is much faster than itself working via the other two interfaces. We can also see that FireWire400 is preferable to USB 2.0 in all the patterns.
This diagram has nothing new to say to us: FireWire800 is superior to both its opponents in the copy near subtest. The gap between FireWire400 and USB 2.0 is smaller.
The last test – copying files from one partition to another – produces the same picture. That is, the FireWire800 interface ensures the highest speed in all the patterns, while FireWire400 in its turn is better than USB 2.0.
The reviewed device will certainly interest people who need a high-performance external disk drive. Of course, it is not the drive that much, but the supported FireWire800 interface, not very popular in computers yet, that ensures high data-transfer rates.
As you have seen, this peripheral interface offers speeds comparable with what you have with standard hard disk drives connected via ATA or Serial ATA interfaces (of course, assuming their spindle rotation speed is the same). Yes, the support of three interfaces allows you to connect to more computers, too, but we would recommend this product for its high speed with FireWire800 in the first place rather than for that connection flexibility. Speed being your priority, you won’t hesitate to purchase an additional FireWire800 controller, if your mainboard lacks one. The positive effect from using this interface is going to be felt the most if you’re frequently copying large amounts of data – it can save a lot of your time.
This category of performance-oriented users may also be interested in the senior model of the OneTouch II series. Besides a 300GB storage capacity, it features a larger, 16MB, buffer which should lead to even more speed. We can’t, however, take it for granted, but we hope we’ll soon have an opportunity to test that model in our lab, too.