Testing (continued):
SiSoft Sandra 2005 (File System Benchmark):
The results shown below are taken from SiSoft Sandra 2005's File System Benchmark. This benchmark provides several results, and a handful were selected to represent the performance of each drive. The "Buffered Read" and "Buffered Write" values were chosen since the next benchmark (PC Wizard 2005) also uses these values and it may be of interest to compare the two sets of results. The "Drive Index" is an overall assessment of the drive's performance, and the "Average Access Time" is this benchmark's assessment of that specification.
The screen shot below shows the results reported for the Seagate Momentus drive, as compared to a few other 2.5" drives (including the Toshiba drive actually used in this review). Among other things I learned in this review, is that hiding the system clock might not be a good thing, as the results say this was done in July, despite it actually being conducted in October.
Lower values are desirable for the average access time, while higher values are better for buffered read, buffered write, and burst speed. The results from SiSoft Sandra shown above, and in greater detail below, are in line with what we first saw in HD Tach, and show a mixed bag. The overall score, or what SiSoft calls the Drive Index, does show a significant advantage going to the Momentus drive.
PC Wizard 2005 (Hard Disk Benchmark):
PC Wizard is a lesser known application that includes benchmarking modules that can quickly provide some helpful information about your computer's hardware. The hard disk benchmark module provides a very quick test of a drive's sequential read, sequential write, buffered read, and buffered write capabilities. The screen shot below shows the details from testing the Seagate Momentus drive.
Higher values are better in all values from PC Wizard 2005. The chart below details the results from both the Seagate and Toshiba drives, and show a clean sweep for Seagate in this one.
The Seagate Momentus drive did not dominate the benchmarking portion of the review, but it did perform up to, and perhaps beyond, expectations. A few key areas showed that the Seagate drive did outshine the Toshiba drive, and sometimes by a sizable percentage.
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