500 GB Hard Disk Drive Round-Up
How We Tested
Contents
During our tests we used the configuration listed below and the only variable component between each benchmarking session was the hard disk drive being tested.
Hardware Configuration
- CPU: Core 2 Duo E6600
- Motherboard: ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP (1013 BIOS)
- Memory: 2 GB Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-8500C5D (DDR2-1066/PC2-8500 with 5-5-5-15 timings), configured at 1,066 MHz
- Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB
- Video resolution: 1440×900 75 Hz
- Video Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 932BW
- Power Supply: OCZ ProXStream 1000 W
- CPU Cooler: Thermaltake TMG i1
- Optical Drive: LG GSA-H54N
Software Configuration
- Windows XP Professional using NTFS file system
- Service Pack 3
- Intel Inf driver version: 9.0.0.1008
- NVIDIA video driver version: 175.19
Benchmarking Software
We adopted a 3% error margin. So, performance differences below 3% cannot be considered meaningful. In other words, products where the performance difference is below 3% must be considered as having similar performance.