How we test
Setup| Storage drive | Patriot Xporter Magnum | Corsair Voyager GT | Samsung HM161JJ 2.5in eSATA and USB | Corsair X128 SSD (e)SATA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drive capacity | 128GB | 8GB | 160GB | 128GB |
| Approx. price at time of writing | £290 | £15 |
£37 | £290 |
| Approx price per GB | 2.265 |
1.875 |
0.231 |
2.265 |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz) | |||
| Motherboard | Foxconn P45 Digital Life | |||
| BIOS revision | P03 | |||
| Memory | 4GB Corsair DDR2-1,066 | |||
| Host hard drive | Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB | |||
| Graphics Card | Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB | |||
| Mainboard software | Intel
9.1.1.1015 |
|||
| Graphics driver | Catalyst 9.7 | |||
| PSU | Corsair HX1000 | |||
| Operating System | Windows 7 RC 64-bit | |||
Tests
| 2D benchmarks | CrystalDiskMark 2.2.0m 6.15GB large-file read and write test 123MB small-file read and write test |
|---|
Setup notes
To give some idea of performance, we're comparing the 128GB Xporter Magnum against a smaller-capacity, speedy Corsair Voyager GT 8GB pen-drive. The comparison will show whether capacity makes a significant difference.2.5in mechanical drives can also be used for on-the-go storage. A Samsung 160GB, 7,200rpm SATA drive's power credentials are low enough to be host-powered when driven by USB from an Akasa USB/eSATA caddy. We've also conducted tests via the faster eSATA interface, requiring attaching a USB plug to a power point on the caddy.
However, the rise of SSDs now means that a decent-performing 128GB model - a Corsair X128 in this case - can be purchased for the same money. This is connected via both eSATA and straight SATA for speedy transfers, for a best-case scenario. However, the branding on the drive is almost irrelevant as a number of manufacturers etail the same basic SSD. Patriot's Torqx 128GB is ostensibly the same model.
CrystalDiskMark provides throughput data based on sequential reads and writes, and random (512KB/4KB) reads and writes. We've used the default 100MB file-size for the tests.
In terms of real-world benchmarks, we time how long it take to transfer two sets of files to and from a Seagate 7200.11 500GB drive equipped with Windows 7 RC. The large-file tests include two movies that total 6.15GB. The small-file test is the expanded CINEBENCH R10 benchmark folder that's 123MB in size but has 1,971 files, ranging from 26.5MB down to 1,600 or so files that are 4KB or smaller. We appreciate that the host drive may prove to be a bottleneck in this case, yet it does represent a real-world scenario.
