Image processing

Adobe Photoshop

ACDSee PowerPack

ACDSee gives our hard drives some room to stretch their legs, but the Barracuda ES.2 comes up a little short. The drive is again bested by its direct rivals, including the 7200.11. Among high-capacity contenders, only the original ES is slower here.

Multitasking and office applications

Microsoft Office

Mozilla

Mozilla and Windows Media Encoder

Performance is too close to call through WorldBench's office and multitasking tests.

Other applications

WinZip

Nero

However, Nero and WinZip provide some drama. In both tests, the ES.2 lags well behind all of its closest competitors. It's interesting to note that the 7200.11 has at least a ten-second advantage in each test, as well.