40GB Roundup Vol 1 - Page 2

Seek Times Test

IPEAK's service time tests uses 25.000 random, single sector read/writes at all the disk's capacity. The resultant distribution of service times is plotted as a probability density vs. service time. This curve represents the probability that a request will be completed in a given amount of time. The service time distribution is not cumulative. The test results can be directly compared to the access time test.

As the test results show, the Maxtor 740DX has the fastest access time at least for the IDE drives, while reading. The IBM 60GXP comes second, the FujiTsu drive comes third with 13.3ms, the WD drive forth with 13.73ms and the Seagate Barracuda III last with 15.05ms. At the Write Service time, only the FujiTsu and Maxtor drives didn't gave any outliers at the end of the test.

The IBM had 1166, the Seagate 2617 and the Western Digital 64. The Intel's IPEAK on-line help explains what outliers mean "...A well behaved storage subsystems should have any outliers in the service time distribution and the distribution should be narrow. Outliers in the distribution makes the storage subsystem unsuitable for real-time applications, such as multi-media, where variations in service time are detrimental..."