Bij x-bit labs is een vergelijking neergezet tussen een zevental hardeschijven die allemaal zijn uitgerust met platters van 20GB. Van de zeven testkandidaten zijn er een drietal die hun rondjes draaien met 7200RPM, een drietal die dat doet op 5400RPM en de Quantum Fireball lct20 draait slechts 4500 rondjes per minuut. Volgens de testen en metingen van x-bit labs is de beste schijf in de categorie 7200RPM de Quantum Fireball Plus AS en de beste schijf in de categorie 5400RPM en lager is de WD Protege:
As for the first prize, we don't have any doubts about it, because here our subjective impressions were fully backed up by the testing results. Quantum Fireball Plus AS deserved the first prize for high results shown in Business Disk WinBench and excellent performance in IOMeter. We should also mention low average seek time and no problems in UDMA33 mode. This hard disk drive is the quietest of all and dissipates less heat.
The second prize is given to WD200BB. Although it proved not very well in Business Disk WinBench, it managed to regain its reputation in Win2000 + NTFS.
[...] WD200EB features a four times larger cache buffer than its competitors that's why it was the leader in all file tests.
[...] Quantum Fireball lct20 managed to run all the tests up to the end and will be rewarded with our special prize: "For Persistence" :-)