Winbench

The SCSI drives don't do well at all in Winbench 99's disk playback tests and are particularly embarrassed in the Business Diskmark test. The Raptor is the most impressive 10K-RPM drive in the disk playback tests, though it has to play second fiddle to Maxtor's Serial ATA DiamondMax Plus 9 in the Business Diskmark.

In Winbench 99's disk transfer rate tests, the SCSI drives redeem themselves, trailing only our IDE RAID 0 configuration at both the beginning and end of the disk. Between the SCSI drives, Maxtor's Atlas edges out Seagate's Cheetah.

The Raptor falls in behind the SCSI drives, but it does manage to offer significantly better performance than Serial ATA drives from Maxtor and Seagate.

RPMs really pay off in Winbench 99's disk access time tests; our three 10K-RPM drives are in a class all their own here. The Atlas turns in the quickest access time, followed closely by the Cheetah and Raptor. Overall, access times seem to make a compelling case for higher spindle speeds.