The windows test proved that this drive really outperforms the other drives in all categories. Scoring closely behind the Raptors in a RAID 0 configurations is very impressive!

Most of the enthusiast scene has become wildly familiar with FutureMark benchmarking products. They are the famed creators of the 3DMark suite and the PCMark suite. PCMark 05 benchmarks these drives and gives useful information about their performance; providing information about performance in Windows XP Startup, Application Loading, Virus Scanning, File Writing, and General usage.

Writing and XP Startup times are tops with the WD5000KS and performance in the other classes is a close one.

Everest Ultimate Edition is the newest addition that the benchmarking gambit C.O.D. will run. The Ultimate Edition of the Everest software provides extra features over its less inclined siblings. With this version of the software, you can benchmark your HDD's. These benchmarks will be Linear Reading at the beginning, middle, and end, access times, and buffered read. From these results, we can verify that what the other benchmarks are seeing is valid. The WD5000KS leads in almost all tests for single drives and falls a hair short in only the calculated access times.

With all these results taken into consideration, it is hard not to be impressed by the performance of this drive. In a single drive configuration, not only can you use this drive for storage but you can use it for your main drive as well and not be worried about any performance hits. The WD5000KS is definitely at the head of the class and does so with a nominal price tag. The unit was quietly outperforming the competition (no pun intended). With all this said and done, would I buy one? Not only would I buy one, I will slap it with the C.O.D. Seal of Excellence!