We Have a Winner - Seagate's 'Cheetah X15'

Conclusion

Let's be honest: Did we expect these results? Basically, no. Most of us certainly expected a drive with transfer rates that could break all known records. Instead, we got a technically sophisticated drive with optimized overall performance.

There might be other drives that can beat the Cheetah X15 in terms of maximum data transfer rates, but hardly any drive will outperform this high-tech model in any real world benchmark - the Seagate dominated both the Business and the Highend Winbench, as well as the access time tests.

These benchmark results, in addition to the extremely high minimum transfer rate, make the drive perfectly suitable for all kinds of high-end applications. As an added plus, its makes only as much noise as typical 10,000 rpm models.

$410 is still a high price for a drive that stores only 18 GB, but if budget is not your most important concern, then it is definitely the best choice for high-performance drive arrays.