SiSoft now has a very comprehensive Hard Drive benchmark program, we tested each drive individually.

Seagate edges a win here, both in access time and in data throughput, albeit not by much.

TMPGEnc MPEG Encoding

Once again Seagate edges a victory.

DVD Shrink

Blazing fast speeds these days and the drives are neck and neck, I would basically call this one up for grabs.

CDex

37 WAV files totaling 1.36GB in a batch MP3 encode, this is just a little bit of work for the entire system...

This was a lot closer then I expected, while Seagate still pulled out a slight victory with some of the previous tests I expected it to be a much larger variance.

Final Words

While Hitachi has done a lot to improve the image of the dreaded DeskStar lineup, they have yet to catch up to Seagate. A 5yr warranty is a great place to start mind you (as I found out the hard way, just as I completed testing, my Samsung boot drive failed and it only has a 1yr warranty :/). Performance is just slightly behind that of our Seagate drive, not to mention simple things such as a jumper so you can easily manipulate the hard drive into performance that matches your system.

The storage and warranty can not be denied, however performance lacks just a notch behind the leader. Not a great deal behind, but given the choice, I would have to include the 'missing' jumper and the headache caused by the differing method of speed setting into the equation when choosing a hard drive.

We'd like to thank our friends at Geeks.com for making this review possible.