Testing
Our philosophy since day one has been to use less synthetic benchmarks and more simulations of what gamers will experience both in and out of the game. In an effort to stay in line with this philosophy, we have done both. The synthetic benchmarks will be there for you to compare numbers with other reviews and sites across the net, and the real world benchmarks will be there so you can get a grasp of what you will experience when you own one or more of these hard drives.

Our test bed is composed of the following:

• Case: Vigor Force
• Motherboard: Abit Fatal1ty AN-9
• Processor: AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+ (AM2)
• RAM: Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC2-1000
• PSU: Cooler Master 650W
• Video Card: Sapphire x1950 PRO
• Hard Drive: 3x 750GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10

Our testing plan:

• Noise Test
• Temperature Testing
• HD Tach Quick Bench
• SiSoft SANDRA - File System Benchmark
• SiSoft SANDRA - Physical Disk Benchmark - READ test
• Map load - Far Cry
• Map load - Battlefield 2

These tests will be run completely in SATA II (3.0 GB/s) mode and in three different configurations: single disk, 2 disks in RAID-0, and then all three disks in a RAID-5 configuration. The only tests that will not be done in all three configurations is the noise and temperature tests. This is simply for the fact that these will remain roughly identical in any configuration. That being said, let's dive into those tests immediately.

Noise Test
Hard drive noise is one of the more irritating noises a computer can make. It is sporadic and there is a complete lack of rhythm. Unfortunately, I do not have a decibel meter handy, but I can say this. These hard drives were barely audible at full load outside the case, and were inaudible once inside. I hate the sound of a hard drive's erratic behavior. It was a pleasure to see such a powerhouse be so quiet.

Thermal Testing
I may not have have a decibel meter on hand, but I do have a infrared thermometer handy for taking temperatures of completely arbritray things around the house. However, I have finally put it to good use. Now, in an effort to stress the hard drives, I had to run an excess of programs that would access them constantly. Thus, I transfered over 250 GB of data on and then off again while running HD Tach Long Benchmarks in loop, and installing and uninstalling Battlefield 2. I did this for a period of 2 hours while typing on my laptop. During this time I occasionally grabbed the temp from various locations on the hard drives. This averaged out to 37C, but the bottom of the hard drives was always hotter and was consistently averaging 42C. This is actually a decent temperature for hard drives to run at. So, I unfortunately will not be able to substitute these in for space heaters in preparation for the cold Chicago winter I will soon be facing.

From a noise and temperature standpoint, these hard drives passed the tests and performed well. However, noise and temperature aren't going to help gain back all that time wasted loading huge maps and waiting for file transfers. Thus, we needed to see how gamers could benefit from these ungodly large hard drives.