Testing (continued):
SiSoft Sandra XI - Next we have the results from the SiSoft Sandra XI File Systems Benchmark. This benchmark provides several results, and a pair were selected to represent the performance of each drive. Lower values are desirable for the average access time, while higher values are better for the drive index.
As with HD Tach, the average access time values are a wash, but the drive index values heavily favor Western Digital's 750GB offering. The 90 MB/s score is well over 20% better than the Seagate drive. Impressive!
PC Wizard 2007 - PC Wizard is a more obscure suite of system diagnostics and benchmarks, but the Hard Disk Benchmark offers a quick look at a variety of drive performance data. The buffered reading, buffered writing, sequential reading, and sequential writing results are charted below, and higher is better in all cases.
Here we see a split, similar to what was shown in HD Tach's burst and average read speed results. While the Seagate 750GB drive performed better in the two 'buffered' portions of the test, the Western Digital offering performed better in the 'sequential' tests.
Real World Testing - There were three phases to testing the
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB Hard Drive in real world settings; measuring the time it took for Windows to start up and shut down, monitoring the drive's temperature while idle and under a load, and analyzing the noise produced by the drive.
