are my Cheetah 18 XL's slow?

[Adcadet]

just curious about how my Cheetah 18XLs compare to modern IDE drives (7200 RPM/8 MB cache drives, and raptors). They seem to be nice and speedy still. Just wondering if I'm missing out and should spring for a new HD (Raptor?) for my boot drive.

 

[Handruin]

I'm still running a barracuda 18XL and it's not that bad. Overall transfer rate isn't as high, but seek time is better. I've post the results, but my other PC is down at the moment...

 

[Adcadet]

did you mean that you're running a Cheetah 18XL? Or do you mean that since your 'Cuda 18XL is still peppy my Cheetah 18 XL should be as well?

 

[Handruin]

did you mean that you're running a Cheetah 18XL? Or do you mean that since your 'Cuda 18XL is still peppy my Cheetah 18 XL should be as well?

Nope, I have a baracuda 18XL, and I think it is still peppy. And as you mentioned, I would think the Cheetah would be even faster.

Once I get those drives running again, I'll run the benchmarks against a WD1200JB as a comparison. I know it's not the newest drive around, but it's relatively new.

 

[Adcadet]

that'd be great if it isn't too much trouble. As I'm waiting for parts my Cheetah 18 XLs are sitting idle

 

[Handruin]

Well..don't hold yer breath. My main pc is dead at the moment, and those drives are in it. I'm waiting to get another motherboard to run my athlon 1.2GHz. If it was up and running, I'd do it right now...

 

[Adcadet]

you want a dual 1.2 GHz Athlon and Tyan Tiger MP with 512 MB RAM? I've got one laying around I'm trying to get rid of.

 

[zx]

My guess is that the Cheetah 18XL will be slower than a WD1200JB in desktop tasks. I compared a Fujitsu MAN series 18GB drive to a WD400JB and found that they are both equally fast except when working with VMWare, where the SCSI drive was slightly faster.

Those are not really scientific benchmarks, but they can give you an idea.

 

[Tannin]

Not even close. Any bit of serious iron (i.e., a 15K drive) blows consumer-grade IDE out of the water without even trying. Right now, in this machine, I have an X15-36LP (18GB) and an 8MB cache 7200 (120GB). They are not even on the same planet.