BARE FEATS Macintosh Speed Test Results by Category (part two)

Storage Speed

September 24th, 2004 (Updated) -- RocketRAID, the first SATA PCI-X host adapter for Mac -- featuring 8 channels of raw throughput (added numbers on 6, 7 and 8 MaXLine III drives)

August 23rd, 2004 -- Medea G-RAID trumps the LaCie Big Disk Extreme

August 21st, 2004 (updated) -- Which FireWire 800 Storage is FASTER -- Two LaCie d2 Extremes or One LaCie Big Disk Extreme? (updated with improved G5 results after flushing caches)

July 23rd, 2004 -- The bargain Burly Box -- External SATA RAID for the "rest of us."

July 9th, 2004 (Update) -- Does it matter what brand of SATA drive you use in your four drive RAID 0 set? (Seagate SATA RAID added to graphs)

May 25th, 2004 (Updated) -- "Stock" versus "Configure To Order" 15 inch PowerBook -- 4200rpm, 5400rpm, or 7200rpm DRIVE? (Added random READ and WRITE results)

May 8th, 2004 (Updated) -- How Fast Does A USB 2.0 Drive Go On The eMac? PowerBook? G5 Power Mac? How does it compare to FireWire?

May 6th, 2004 -- What's the Fastest Boot Drive for The G5 Power Mac?

April 16th, 2004 -- LaCie's Big Disk Extreme versus "Mere Mortal" FireWire 800

April 15th, 2004 -- The Fastest SATA drive meets the BIGGEST: 10K WD Raptor versus Hitachi 7K400.

03/30/04 -- TransIntl's SwiftData 200 Puts 5 Drives INSIDE A G5 Power Mac.

03/26/04 -- FireWire 800 Speed Mysteries Solved: Dock vs Enclosure, 2.5 vs 3.5 inch RAID, PowerBook vs Power Mac

02/26/04 -- G5Jam -- Terabyte RAID INSIDE a G5 Power Mac

02/20/04 Updated -- How Fast Is A FireWire 800 CardBus PC Card Compared To Built-In FireWire 800 On A PowerBook?

01/30/04 Updated -- Four Drive RAID 0 -- Ultra320 SCSI compared to SATA and FireWire 800 RAID sets.

01/23/04 -- How Much Will A RAID 0 Scratch Volume Accelerate Photoshop CS When Editing Large (300MB) Documents?

10/14/03 -- Remember the 4 Channel FW800 PCI-X Card from Indigita? We tried it in our Dual G5's 133MHz PCI-X Slot.

10/02/03 Updated -- Optional Aluminum PowerBook drives (Stock 4200rpm vs 5400rpm vs 7200rpm options -- 80GN added to graphs.)

9/12/03 -- Drives lose speed as they fill up. Which Serial ATA drive loses the least?

9/10/03 -- Serial ATA RAID 0 striped pairs compared (Hitachi, Maxtor, Seagate)

9/9/03 -- Various Serial ATA drives compared (Hitachi, Maxtor, Seagate).

8/18/03 Update -- Serial ATA-150 versus Parallel ATA-133 and FireWire 800

7/18/03 -- Acard's new 4 Channel HW RAID card and four fast drives take on the storage world.

7/15/03 -- Wiebetech Read My Mind: 7200RPM NoteBook Drive in a FireWire 800 Portable Enclosure

7/4/03 -- The World's First 7200rpm Notebook Drive: Hitachi 7K60 Takes On The Competition

6/6/03 -- Three Different Ultra320 15,000 RPM SCSI Drives Compared

6/5/03 -- Miglia MediaBank HS-R -- "Instant Security"

5/30/03 -- FireWire 800 Optimizations (especially with dual stripe arrays).

5/23/03 -- Bare Feats compares four brands of FireWire 800 enclosure. Is there a significant difference in speed?

5/16/03 -- How fast can you get FireWire 800 RAID 0 to go? And how does it compare to Ultra ATA-133 HW RAID 0 and Ultra320 SCSI RAID 0?

5/10/03 -- FireWire 800 Ships... Finally! See it compared to FireWire 400, USB 2.0, ATA-133, and Ultra320 SCSI.

4/21/03 -- PowerBook Replacement Drive Shootout: 60G Toshiba GAX versus 80G Hitachi Travelstar GN.

01/13/03 -- Power Mac running FireWire 800 PCI Card and Bridge Board! Yowza!

10/31/02 Update -- How Fast Does The New IBM Deskstar 180GXP Run On An ATA-133 Controller Card? (Updated to include the WD1800JB "jumbo buffer")

10/21/02 -- Wiebetech Breaks Through The Capacity and Power Barriers for FireWire Drives. (Bare Feats tests the new 180GB drives in bus powered case kits.)

10/16/02 Update -- Does a 52X CD-RW really burn CD's 6.5 times faster than an 8X burner? Is it faster on FireWire than on internal IDE? (You read right -- 52X now!)

10/10/02 -- Is a Maxtor 5400RPM ATA-133 drive just as fast as an IBM 7200RPM ATA-100 drive?

10/4/02 -- Shootout between three new FireWire RAID boxes from Wiebetech, Miglia, and Granite Digital. (Includes FireWire PCI card comparison.)

8/9/02 Update -- FireWire RAID Revisited or "Why You Need Two FireWire Channels." (Featuring the NEW Granite Digital FireVUE Hot Swap case kits.)

8/1/02 -- The long awaited Toshiba MK4019GAX 2.5 inch drive (5400 rpm, 16MB cache) is starting to ship. Bare Feats compares it to the IBM Travelstar 40GNX and two other drives.

7/26/02 -- Super FireWire Docks For Super Drives.

6/29/02 Update -- The new IBM Travelstar 40GNX rocks! I tried it in FOUR different portable FireWire case kits. And compared it to FIVE other popular 2.5 inch drives.

5/10/02 -- The Wiebetech FireWire Drive Dock: The Missing Piece In Your FireWire Arsenal?

4/30/02 -- Do FireWire Drives Run Faster or Slower on OS X? Do Third Party FireWire Drivers Help?

3/25/02 -- The Wiebetech Micro GB FireWire/USB2 2.5 inch drive takes on the three fastest portable FireWire drives.

3/15/02 -- Which is the faster interface for an external drive, USB 2.0 or FireWire?

3/1/02 -- Which Makes The Best HW ATA RAID Pair, The WD1200JB's or the IBM 120GXP's?

02/15/02 Updated -- How Much Speed Does A Drive Lose When It Gets Full or Near The "End"? (ATA-133 added to ATA-100, ATA-66, FireWire.)

02/12/02 Updated -- Of The New, Tiny, Featherweight FireWire Drives, which is The Smallest? Fastest? Best Value? --- "FireFly"? "Cutie"? "Clear 911"? (Add results for the new, surprisingly fast "FireLite.")

02/01/02 -- How About TWO (2) Western Digital 120GB 7200rpm Caviar Drives With Jumbo 8MB Buffer In A Striped RAID Array?

02/01/02 Updated -- Western Digital Smokes The Competition With Their Special Edition WD1200JB ("Jumbo Buffer") ATA-100 Drive. (Includes WD1200BB w/ 2MB buffer)

01/25/02 -- Which Of The Fastest ATA-100 Drives Works Best In A FireWire Case?

01/23/02 Updated -- Of The New, Tiny, Featherweight FireWire Drives, which is The Smallest? Fastest? Best Value? --- "FireFly"? "Cutie"? "Clear 911"? (Added results from NEW Travelstar 60GH 5400rpm mounted inside a 667 TiBook, as well as in the Clear 911 FW case.)

12/10/01 -- Does it make much difference what software you use to format and load FireWire drives?

12/10/01 -- Is a 24X CD burner actually 3 times faster than a 8X burner? How does it compare to a 16X burner?

11/9/01 -- What's the hot Ultra ATA setup: Sonnet Tempo ATA100 or Acard 6280M ATA-133? And how do both compare to the Acard 6880M True Hardware RAID?

10/18/2001 -- How Fast Do The Fastest Ultra ATA Drives Go Inside A FireWire Case?

10/13/2001 UPDATE -- What is the Fastest Ultra ATA drive for under $200? Now includes the fastest Maxtor 80G, Seagate 80G, IBM 60G, and WDC 80G drives.

7/16/2001 -- Acard ATA/100 PCI card with hardware RAID. Want to know how fast it is?

7/13/2001 -- How fast is the new IBM 48GB TravelStar 2.5 inch drive? How well does it run on the PowerBook and iBook? And how fast does it go in the new "Oxford 911" FireWire 2.5 inch enclosures?

6/12/2001 -- The iBook 2001's FireWire is FASTER than the Titanium G4 PowerBook's FireWire!

5/18/2001 -- The EZQuest Cobra FireWire drive has speed to burn, even without the Oxford 911 chip set. (See it compared to two other very fast FireWire drives.)

5/3/2001 -- FireWire "Flames Out" on PowerBooks. See graphic proof that the PowerBook and iBook FireWire ports have significantly slower FireWire performance than iMacs and all Power Mac desktops.

4/24/2001 -- There are now TWO types of FireWire enclosures with the FAST Oxford 911 chip set. So which drive enclosure is the FASTEST?

4/20/2001 -- FWDepot's New "Titanium" Portable FireWire Drive Takes On VST's "IceCube" and Granite Digital's "Iceberg."

3/30/2001 -- FWB FireWire RAID + Granite Digital's "911" FireWire bridge = nose bleed speed!

3/19/2001 -- How fast is the new 16X Que! Fire CD-RW? Does it work with Apple's iTunes and Disk Burner software?

2/19/2001 -- Granite Digital's Bridge Board Breaks The 30MB/sec Barrier For Single FireWire Drives!

1/8/2001 (updated) -- How much speed does a PowerBook Wallstreet gain from a hard drive upgrade? (Added 20G to testing.)

12/15/2000 -- Is a 12X FireWire CD-RW really 50% faster than an 8X CD-RW?

12/7/2000 -- Make Your FireWire Drives Shoot Flames With FireRAID from SmartDisk/VST.

12/1/2000 -- Is A FireWire Orb Drive Faster Than A SCSI Orb Drive? And what about those FireWire/SCSI converters?

11/24/2000 -- Is the Maxtor DiamondMax 80 as fast as the IBM Deskstar 75GXP?

11/17/2000 -- Flash Card Reader "BattleBots" - USB versus FireWire

11/3/2000 -- The 1.39 ROM update on the Acard hardware RAID controller makes it a speed demon.

9/22/2000 -- Want 100+ MB/sec sustained read and write speed? Try 3 Cheetah 15K drives and a 39160 controller!

9/8/2000 -- Test Results for the Newest, Fastest Drives: Ultra 160 vs Ultra ATA vs FireWire. New drives. New firmware. New, new, new.

8/18/2000 -- Three new FireWire drives READ 80% faster than old ones.

8/18/2000 (update) -- The Right Stuff: Dual Drive Ultra160 SCSI Array Hits 87MB/sec! Added the results from the Adaptec Power Domain 39160N.

8/8/2000 -- The complete listing of all the Ultra ATA/66 PCI cards running one and two drives on both Sawtooth and Yikes. Includes Sonnet Tempo, Acard, TurboMAX/66, and SmartDisk/VST UltraTek/66.

7/21/2000 -- Which FireWire/USB card should I buy? Is there any difference in speed? See the shootout between the Firewire boards and a feature comparison chart.

7/14/2000 -- Test results on two new storage products:
1. The new Acard HARDWARE IDE RAID that works with a flip of a switch..
2. The new 15,000 rpm Seagate Cheetah.

Updated 6/29/2000 -- How about an Ultra ATA/66 controller than can achieve transfer speeds of almost 70MB/sec???!!! The new VST UltraTek/66 ROCKS! (Includes speeds from Blue & White and Power Mac 9600.)

6/23/2000 -- What's the fastest Ultra ATA drive under $200? The new IBM Deskstar 75GXP goes up against Seagate, Quantum, Maxtor and Western Digital models.

4/18/2000 -- Update to "Fastest Way To Backup" chart. Added 8X FireWire CDR.

4/4/2000 -- Which is faster, a 2 Gig Jaz or a 2 Gig Orb drive?

UPDATED: Can a dual Ultra ATA striped array compete with a dual Ultra2 SCSI striped array? (Matching Maxtor drives this time!! Mo' speed, mo' speed!)

4/3/2000 -- Two reasons you have to junk your old Power Mac.

3/31/2000 -- The high side of the low end meets the low end of the high side. Apple's iMac SE 400 and iBook SE 366 versus the PowerBook Pismo 400 & G4/400 Sawtooth.

3/24/2000 -- Can a MacWorks RocketFire PCI card match the speed of built-in FireWire?

3/10/2000 -- Is the hot, new Maxtor 40 gig the fastest Ultra ATA drive under $300?

2/18/2000 -- 400MHz Shootout. Beige Desktop and PM 7500 with the help of bargain G3/G4 upgrades, cheap/fast hard drive, and a Voodoo3 3000, go head to head with a G4 Sawtooth and a G4 Yikes.

2/9/2000 -- Will an Ultra ATA/66 controller make a Seagate Barracuda Ultra ATA/66 drive go faster than with an Ultra ATA/33 controller?

1/14/2000 -- Can two Ultra Wide SCSI Cheetah's in a striped array outrun a single Barracuda ATA/66?

1/5/2000 -- Can a Beige Desktop with a G4 ZIF upgrade "run with the big dogs"?

12/28/99 -- Which is faster, a "closeout" G4/400 Yikes or the G4/350 Sawtooth?

12/24/99 -- Which is faster, a single Ultra Wide SCSI drive or a single Ultra-ATA/66 drive?

12/17/99 -- The "obsolete" G4/400 Yikes dukes it out with a G4/400 Sawtooth Rev B.

12/8/99 -- The new Seagate Barracuda is still the fastest Ultra-ATA/66 drive upgrade for under $200!

11/5/99 -- The fastest FireWire drive money can buy: the VST full height 22 gig

10/18/99 -- "The King Has No Clothes." The G4/450 Sawtooth may not be worth the extra $900. Check out the newest speed tests compared to the Yikes & others.

10/12/99 -- Bare Feats checks out the speed of the new iMac G3/400 against other Macintosh models.

9/27/99 -- Is a 7200 RPM IDE drive really faster than a 5400 RPM IDE drive?

What is 3 times faster than a Zip drive and holds 3 times as much as a CD-ROM? Can you say "Orb," boys and girls? (Updated 9/7/99) Includes comparisons with Jaz 1 gig and 4X CDR.

How about a FASTER HARD DRIVE on your Beige G3? Check out this comparison of the bargain Maxtor 20 gig drive with the original Fireball 4 gig drive that came with a G3/266 DT. (9/4/99)