Benchmark Results, Continued
Note that we would have loved to include the application benchmark Winbench 99 2.0, but the results tend to vary by as much as 20% from with current hard drives. Even running the benchmark five times would not result in a reproducible number, which is why we decided to drop this program.
Conclusion
A quick look at the benchmark section reveals the DiamondMax 10 to be a nice performer. With an average access time of 13.5 ms it is head to head with the WD3200JB from Western Digital, and clearly ahead of the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8. Also, the Maxtor drives still lead the interface bandwidth benchmark chart at 124 MB/s; this is the number that defines how fast data can be read from a drive's cache memory. As the 250 and 300 GB versions come with a whopping 16 MB cache, Maxtor provides a solid foundation for good application performance.
Looking at the transfer rates and I/O benchmarks, it becomes obvious that both the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 and the Western Digital WD3200JB are the younger drives, since they deliver better low-level performance. Western Digital clearly dominates the I/O benchmarks while Seagate is the king of transfer performance.
Yet the DiamondMax 10 is a decent desktop hard drive and offers sufficient performance at attractive prices, backed by a three year warranty. In addition, it is one of the cooler running drives: we measured 115° F (46°C). Should you want a longer warranty period, there is the MaXLine III, or Seagate's 7200.8 to choose from. The DiamondMax 10 may be Maxtor's current desktop jewel, but it is suffering from its age.
