Hardware

PCMark05 Pro Hard Disk Performance

The PCMark05 Pro suite includes a hard disk performance component, which is separated into different test segments relative to actual real-world demands. The test formats have been created from real-world usage patterns, and include varying degrees of heavy read, write and seek requirements. For this review, we have chosen the Windows XP Startup, General Usage, File Write, and Virus Scan tests, all of which are presented in a MB/sec. format.

The Windows XP Startup tests attempt to duplicate the startup routine of Windows XP, and emulates the conditions present when the operating system loads. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB shows high performance next to the 500GB and 750GB Seagate Barracuda hard drives, but it falls behind the Western Digital 750GB model.

The General Usage disk benchmark offers up a wide range of individual tests, from opening a document to compressing an image to playing media files, and even includes some game-related program loads as well. This test certainly lives up to its name, and is almost an even balance between disk reads and writes. The Seagate 7200.11 1TB drive again finds itself slightly behind the WD 750GB model, although it does post the second best score.

The File Write benchmark provides us with another piece of the hard disk puzzle, and is a test comprised entirely of disk write operations. In this case, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB redeems itself a bit with a convincing victory in the very important file writing tests, and posts a score well in front of both the Seagate and WD 750GB drives.

Our last chart is for the Virus Scan benchmark, which is primarily a disk reading test, and consists of scanning 600MB of files for viruses. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB again proves to be a very high-end performer, outpacing the Seagate and WD 750GB hard drives by a wide margin.