Testing (continued):
Windows Start Up and Shut Down - This test was simple; using a stopwatch, the test system was monitored as Windows started up and shut down with each drive installed as the boot drive. For start up, the clock was started as soon as the BIOS beeped after a cold start, and the clock was stopped when the Windows desktop was visible and ready for action. For shut down, the clock was started as soon as the red "Turn Off" icon was clicked, and the clock was stopped when the system actually powered off.
As the results indicate, this system is no speed demon when it comes to loading up all its devices, drivers, and connections, but the Western Digital did make an impact on this. Just by switching drives, the system was able to consistently boot up about 3 seconds faster. Not much, but it's something.
Thermal Testing - For this phase of testing, Everest Ultimate Edition 2006 was used to monitor drive temperatures at idle and load conditions. For the idle condition, the system was just allowed to sit at the Window's desktop for an extended period of time. For the load condition, HD Tach RW 3.0.1.0 was set to run a full test, and several large DVD files were transferred to each drive. The stress of the benchmark running at the same time as the file transfers got the drives working non-stop for a period of at least an hour while all case fans in the area of the drive installation were turned off.
The results show that all the drives are in the same ball park. While the Western Digital 750GB drive started out warmer than the 750GB drive from Seagate, they both reached the same maximum temperature. Although you could be sure that the drives would get much warmer in poorly ventilated cases or in crowded portable enclosures, turning the case fan back on resulted in just about zero temperature rise from idle to load.
Noise Analysis - The noise analysis on these drives was a bit subjective, as they are far too quiet for my sound level meter to pick up. The drives were installed into a fairly standard drive cage using four screws that secured them by their sides. The noise from all drives was minimal and extremely hard to discern, even with the case fans set to their quietest. I did find that the two 750GB drives were quieter while active, which is definitely welcome in a low noise environment, like an HTPC setup, where large media files might be accessed and you don't want excess noise interrupting a movie or song.
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