Test Results & Benchmarks (Cont.)

HD Tach 3.0.10

As a second benchmark suite we opted for HD Tach to evaluate the performance of the Spire GigaPod III USB drive powered by a Maxtor hard drive. We will once again put two other drives against it to see the performance and speed difference. This will again be the Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133 (DiamondMax Plus 9) and a Hitachi TravelStar 80GB (Sweex Mobile).

Spire GigaPod III USB 2.0 (Maxtor 120GB Ultra ATA/133)

First we fire up the Spire GigaPod III USB 2.0 drive and we let HD Tach run his benchmark. HD Tach will actually run several tests, namely a Burst Test, a CPU Test, a Random Access Test and a Sequencial Read Test. All these combined will give the final result.

Spire GigaPod III USB 2.0 Drive
- Tested on 2005-12-04 at 12:31
- Random access: 14.8ms
- CPU utilization: 9% (+/- 2%)
- Average read: 28.2MB/s
- Burst speed: 31.1MB/s

Sweex Mobile USB 2.0 (Hitachi TravelStar 80GB)

Next we give the Sweex Mobile USB 2.0 drive a spin with HD Tach to find out how this one handles the benchmark suite.

Sweex Mobile USB 2.0 Drive
- Tested on 2005-12-04 at 12:38
- Random access: 17.3ms
- CPU utilization: 8% (+/- 2%)
- Average read: 27.9MB/s
- Burst speed: 31.1MB/s

Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133 (DiamondMax Plus 9)

And lastly the Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133 comes to have a run with HD Tach. This to mark the difference in performance between a USB 2.0 drive and a normal IDE drive.

Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133 Drive
- Tested on 2005-12-04 at 13:02
- Random access: 13.8ms
- CPU utilization: 4% (+/- 2%)
- Average read: 49.0MB/s
- Burst speed: 117.7MB/s

Spire GigaPod III USB 2.0 vs. Sweex Mobile USB 2.0

Let's start comparing these results a bit more closely, starting with both USB 2.0 drives. These actually perform roughly the same way. The only slight differences we noticed is the random access and the average read results. In both cases the Spire GigaPod III performs a bit better, although this is linked to the hard drive used on the USB enclosure. The Maxtor 3.5" harddisk is running at 7200rpm while the Hitachi 2.5" harddisk only runs at 5400rpm and that would explain the main difference in performance.

On the burst test you get identical performance of 31.1MB/s, which can be explained by the USB 2.0 throughput that can be generated. Both Spire and Sweex use a USB 2.0 high speed connection and therefore it comes to no surprise the maximum burst speed would be the same.

Spire GigaPod III USB 2.0 vs. Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133

When we look at the USB 2.0 against the normal Ultra ATA/133 performance we get a totally different picture. The USB 2.0 drive clearly falls behind in all benchmarks. The random access has a small increase on Ultra ATA/133 and the average read is pulling ahead and almost doubling the score of the USB 2.0 enclosure.

And what about the burst speed you may ask, well comparing both we can say that the USB 2.0 enclosure doesn't come close to the performance of Ultra ATA/133. It just got beaten quite hard... Let's just leave it at that, USB 2.0 is no match for conventional Ultra ATA interface.