Image processing

Adobe Photoshop

ACDSee PowerPack

Photoshop doesn't present any problems for the IDE Flash drive, but ACDSee is a disaster. The drive takes three times longer than even our slowest 4,200-RPM drive to complete the test.

Multitasking and office applications

Microsoft Office

Mozilla

Mozilla and Windows Media Encoder

Despite its poor showing in the ACDSee test, the IDE Flash drive takes top honors in two of WorldBench's multitasking and office application tests.

Other applications

WinZip

Nero

But the drive falls to the back of the pack in Nero and WinZip. Performance is poor in both tests, with the IDE Flash drive proving to be almost a third the speed of our fastest 2.5" ATA drives.