Bij AnandTech is een 28 pagina tellende Ultra ATA-66 harddisk roundup geplaatst met daarin twee 5400rpm modellen en vier 7200rpm versies. De IBM Deskstar 34GXP (zelfde als de WD Expert alleen minder duur) kwam als winnaar uit de bus met de Seagate Barracuda als goede tweede. De Quantum en Maxtor modellen bleven beide achter.
As for this round up, four of the drives were 7200-RPM units, with the two 5400-RPM units falling far short in terms of performance. As mentioned above, the 7200-RPM units simply send the slower drives to the bottom of the heap, so unless you can get a great deal on one of them and you are simply looking for the most storage space for the dollar, we would recommend going with a 7200-RPM unit. So with that said, and the fact that this review is about performance, we are left to choose among the remaining four contenders. The IBM Deskstar 34GXP and Western Digital Expert 25.7 are virtually clones of one another, so the choice between those two drives simply comes down to price. If you are deciding between these two drives, just grab the one you can get the best deal on.
While the Quantum drive turned in respectable results and held its own in many of the tests, it just didn’t run away with any of them or shine by itself enough to be considered a top candidate. It turned in average results and should be considered an average drive. This, coupled with the fact that it is one of the higher priced drives of the group, leaves it out as a candidate for the top spot. With the IBM Deskstar 34 GXP and WD Expert taking top honors in most of the charts, and with the Seagate Barracuda running away with the disk transfer tests, your overall choice becomes fairly obvious. If you do a lot of video and/or sound editing, or frequently perform other tasks that require a lot of sustained data transfers, the Seagate Barracuda ATA would be the way to go.