Testing:

The Momentus 5400.6 was tested using a variety of storage benchmarks. The utilities included:

» Crystal Disk Mark 2.2
» HD Tune Pro 3.50
» PassMark Performance Test 7.0
» SiSoft Sandra 2009.1.15.72

All drives were imaged with the identical fresh build of Microsoft Windows Vista Business SP1. Each test was run three times and the scores were averaged.

Crystal Disk Mark 2.2:

Here we see how hampered the older Hitachi SATA I drive is on sequential reads and writes. The Momentus 5400.6 really outpaced the other two thanks to the fact that its areal density is almost twice the older Seagate's and three times the Hitachi's. The random 4k reads and writes seemed respectable given the slow rotational speed of the drives, but here the faster access time of the older Seagate drive (as we'll see later) wins out.



Performance Test v7.0:

In this series of tests, the 500GB Momentus really shines. The sequential reads and writes here are right about on par with what we saw in Crystal Disk Mark - about 1.5 times the bandwidth compared to the 120GB Seagate and right around twice as fast as the 80GB Hitachi.