Western Digital Caviar RE2 750 GB
HDTune Pro
 |
|
Our synthetic HDTune Pro benchmarks showcase some interesting results. These tests show that modern-day high-end 7,200 RPM hard disks like the Caviar RE2 and Barracuda 7200.11 can score on-par or better than a Western Digital Raptor both in average and maximum transfer rates, which is a huge feat considering how long the Raptor has held on to the performance crown. These tests also showed that in a simple RAID-0 configuration, however, the Raptor still can deliver better performance across the board. Conversely, the gap between much cheaper (per GB) 7,200 RPM disks and the Raptor is almost non-existent now.
The Raptor disks still dominate Random Access Time, and will likely always do so, which can help the Raptor deliver smoother overall performance, especially with lots of small files and application loading. However, with Windows Vista’s enhanced caching algorithms and larger amounts of onboard cache, 7,200 RPM drives can do a lot to offset their lower access times and still deliver performance that “feels” almost identical to a 10,000 RPM disk.
