Boot and load times
To test system boot and game level load times, we busted out our trusty stopwatch.

Solid-state storage again proves its worth in our boot and load time tests. As one might expect, OCZ and Samsung have a comfortable lead. This time around, however, the MasterDrive manages to beat the mechanical drives. It's not quite as quick as the SATA II and FlashSSD, but these tests rely heavily on read performance, so the MX does reasonably well.

Among our mechanical drives, the Scorpio Black is emerging as the one to beat. It's just a hair slower booting Windows than Seagate's 7,200-RPM Momentus, but faster loading both of our games. Between 5,400-RPM contenders, the Scorpio Blue easily outpaces the Momentus 5400.4.