Test Results & Benchmarks (Cont.)

HD Tach 3.0.10

As a second benchmark suite we opted for is HD Tach to evaluate the performance of the RaidSonic ICY BOX USB 2.0 external drive powered by a Hitachi TravelStar hard drive. We will once again put Sweex Mobile drive against it to see the performance and speed difference.

RaidSonic ICY BOX USB 2.0 (Hitachi TravelStar 80GB)

First we fire up the RaidSonic ICY BOX 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 Sequential Read Test. All these combined will give the final result.

RaidSonic ICY BOX USB 2.0 Drive
- Tested on 2006-02-06 at 21:07
- Random access: 17.6ms
- CPU utilization: 10% (+/- 2%)
- Average read: 27.9MB/s
- Burst speed: 31.8MB/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

RaidSonic ICY BOX USB 2.0 vs. Sweex Mobile USB 2.0

Let's start comparing these results a bit more closely. These actually perform roughly the same way. The only slight difference we noticed is the burst speed results. In this case the RaidSonic ICY BOX performs a bit better, although this isn't linked to the hard drive used on the USB enclosure. As both external USB 2.0 enclosures used the same Hitachi TravalStar 80GB hard disk running at 5400rpm.

A small difference in burst speed is the only difference between the RaidSonic and the Sweex mobile storage solution. And once again the RaidSonic takes the lead and reaches the highest performance.