The MAG3182LP certainly has some impressive specs, including a 3 millisecond average latency, a 2MB cache, and a remarkable areal density allowing up to 3.6Gigabytes on a single platter. All this in addition to its 10,000RPM (revolutions per minute) rotational speed -- the MAG3182LP definitely stands up to its competitors. As usual we did a bit of research to see where it stands with some industry leaders.

The Fujitsu drive has slightly better advertised average seek times than the Cheetah 18, and its 2 MB cache is double that of the Cheetah, but the biggest difference comes in with the areal density. Where the MAG3182LP has a recording density of 275,000 bits/inch, the Cheetah 18 has only 188,000. As a result, the Fujitsu only has 5 platters while the Seagate has 12.

What you won't see on any spec sheet is that this drive runs cool and quiet -- much more so than any competitor we have seen. Only mildly warm to the touch, compared to the Cheetah's scalding temperatures, this drive is certainly not in need of any active cooling. The drive is also quiet as can be - nothing like the racket made by the Cheetah.

Tested on the industry standard Adaptec AHA 2940U2W Ultra2Wide controller card, and faced off against some of the previous leaders of the hard drive realm, Sharky Extreme has another set of benchmarks for your digestion. We've got em your way, right away, and this isn't even Burger King!

Test System:
ABIT BX6 R2.0 (Slot-1 - Intel 440BX)
Enhanced Memory Systems 128MB PC-133 SDRAM
SoundBlaster Live! Full Version
Adaptec 2940U2W Controller Card
Seagate 17GIG 5400RPM ST317242 HDD
Win98 OSR 1.0
Creative DXR2 CD/DVD Drive

Test Conditions and Specifications: All tests were run a total of five times with the results averaged to determine final score (the highest and lowest scores obtained were disqualified). CPU utilization was reported for all Winbench Disk scores.