BlueSmoke heeft in deze shootout de Seagate Barracuda II en de Quantum Fireball Plus AS getest. De Barracuda II heeft 10,2GB per platter en 2MB cache. Volgens Seagate is de average seek time 8,2ms. De Fireball Plus AS heeft platters van 20,4GB, 2MB cache en een average seek time van 8,5ms. Daarnaast gebruikt Quantum "Hydrodynamic Bearing motors", wat voor minder geluidshinder zorgt . Beide drives draaien op 7200rpm en hebben een ATA-100 interface. Wat prestaties betreft ontlopen Seagate en Quantum elkaar hier niet veel. Toch scoort de Fireball Plus AS iets beter; maar deze drive is dan ook van één generatie later.
The operating temperature and noise produced by both the Barracuda ATA II and the Fireball AS are a bit lower than the levels found in previous generations of 7200rpm drives (eg. the IBM 14GXP or the Seagate Medalist Pro). In most cases, as long as there is sufficient airflow and ventilation, either of these drives should be alright from a heat standpoint.
When it comes to noise levels, the idle noise of both drives are undetectable above our testbed's power supply. Seeks on both drives are the short, deep rumbling seeks, something akin to the Seagate Cheetah 4LP. The Barracuda II sounded slightly louder in seeks, probably because of its marginally faster seek time.
[...] In the end, while this roundup is rather limited in scope (due to the unavailability of drives from other manufacturers), there is no clear winner. Why? Where non-video applications are concerned, the Quantum Fireball AS, being a one-generation ahead of the Barracuda II, takes the hat with its dominant scores in all three non-video access patterns and (less importantly) its higher Business and High-End Disk WinMark scores. However, if video capture is your primary concern, the Seagate Barracuda ATA II is the top dog, even if it is a little long in the teeth in other areas of performance.