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 RaidSonic ICY BOX USB 2.0/Ethernet external drive powered by our Maxtor 120GB hard drive. We will once again put a normal IDE hard drive against it to see the performance and speed difference derived from both interfaces. A second opinion on the throughput figures of both interfaces to confirm what the USB 2.0 interface has to offer next to its flexibility.

RaidSonic ICY BOX NAS2000 USB 2.0 (Maxtor 120GB Ultra ATA/133)

Once again we will kick this of by using the USB 2.0 connection on the ICY BOX IB-NAS2000 mobile storage solution to check the performance reported by HD Tach. 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 tests combined will provide us the final benchmark outcome.

RaidSonic ICY BOX USB 2.0 Drive
- Tested on 2006-10-13 at 11:49
- Random access: 16.1ms
- CPU utilization: 8% (+/- 2%)
- Average read: 30.4MB/s
- Burst speed: 31.0MB/s

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

And finally we also used a normal Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133 hard drive, connected via the standard way, with the IDE cable. Once again we load up HD Tach and run the same benchmark. By doing so, we can show the difference in performance between the external storage approach and a normal IDE hard drive.

Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133 Drive
- Tested on 2006-05-13 at 11:45
- Random access: 13.3ms
- CPU utilization: 2% (+/- 2%)
- Average read: 49.0MB/s
- Burst speed: 118.3MB/s

RaidSonic ICY BOX 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 clear 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. But when it comes to being portable and ease of use, then surely a USB 2.0 interface is the way to go...