Computing on Demand PC News & Reviews
The copying of a HUGE 3 Gig file here was a great indication of real world performance. As you can see from these results, the SE16 actually beats out my nearly twice as expensive Raptor HDD. Raptor (WD740GDRTL) = $2.70 per Gig or $199.88, WD Caviar SE 16 (WD2500KS) = $.52 per Gig or $129.99.
I don’t know what happened here with my Maxtor drive, maybe too many drop tests!! I did confirm the results on another system and all tests were done a minimum of 3 times. From these results you can see that the SE16 still keeps a decent pace when compared to the COSTLY Raptor.
After playing with this drive for a couple of days, I have to say that I am reasonably impressed. The speed of this drive is a welcome addition to my setup. I have heard some rumblings of people complaining about the noise of this drive and all I have to say is that THEY ARE NUTS! I come from the days of the 20MB HDD, 50z’s, and math co-processors. Not everything is hugs and kisses with this thing though. So far, I have experienced a dead drive, out of the box. With regards to their “cool and quiet” claims; I can vouch for the quiet but the cool is another story. This drive was registering a toasty 55C one half inch away from my Raptor which probed at 37C. Bottom line: would I buy one? I already did. I just wish they would match Seagate’s 5 year warranty.
