Western Digital Raptor 150: a test

Tests 1/2
When testing the "Rolls-Royce" of HDs, one will immediately need to know the overall performance of this drive. Hereafter is the result obtained with QuickBench:

It took us some time to understand the huge variation seen with the writing test.
When reading, the benchmark application uses different files, so the cache is not used. But when testing writing capabilities, the data are stored into the cache before being written: so the small files are all stored in the cache before the writing process, explaining the high transfer speed obtained, whereas larger files are first sent to the cache, prior to be written. In addition the test is performed quite fast, so the cache might not be entirely emptied.
Without considering the potential impact of the cache, the Raptor has a data transfer speed 30-50% faster than the Maxtor.
Now let's start with a more real world test that should demonstrate the gain allowed by this HD in every day usage.
We have launched simultaneously 9 applications:
- Calculator
- Address Book
- Chess
- iCal
- iChat
- iDVD
- iMovie HD
- QuickTime Player
- Safari
The timer was started when launching all applications (Command-O), and stopped when the last application icon stopped bouncing in the dock.