The Fastest FireWire Drive
Money Can Buy.

 Since MacTell has stopped answering the phone, there's only one place you can get a Macintosh FireWire drive: VST.

I've been anxious to test the full height 22 gig VST since it matches the specs of the MacTell FirePower. Let's see how it does against the MacTell drive and a few other drives:

 

Conclusion
Turns out that the VST and MacTell 22 gigs are identical drives. Theoretically, they should post the same times. But since the MacTell is no longer sold, the VST becomes the fastest Macintosh FireWire drive you can buy... by default.

None of the FireWire drives tested were as fast as the 5400rpm Western Digital Caviar ATA/33 or the 7200rpm Western Digital Expert ATA/66 internal drives.

Just be thankful we now have a convenient hot swappable, portable drive technology with transfer rates at least 10 times faster than any USB drive.

 

Test Configurations & Procedures

• Test computer was an Apple G4/400 "Yikes!" with disk cache set to 512K.
• For the DUPLICATE ONE BIG DOCUMENT test, I copied a 27MB Adobe Photoshop document onto each drive. Then I timed how long it took to duplicate it on the same drive. Finally I calculated megabytes per second by with the formula: folder size * 2 / seconds.
• For the DUPLICATE LOTZ DOCS test, I copied the 45MB Unreal game folder containing 53 documents onto each drive. Then I timed how long it took to duplicate it on the same drive. Finally I calculated megabytes per second by with the formula: folder size * 2 / seconds.
• The ATTO disk benchmark was run using Express-Pro Tools 2.2 benchmark test with 8MB maximum file size and system disk cache disabled. Sustained Rate is displayed in the charts. Peak rates can be expressive but do not reflect overall drive performance.

BIG MAHALO TO...

...VST for the use of the Full Height FireWire drives

• ...MacTell for the use of the FirePower 22 gig drive (Sorry they had to close their doors.)