G3 Internal IDE Drive Upgrade: Performance Tests Published: 12/22/98

Performance Test Results: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10GB vs Stock Quantum 6GB

MacBench 5    |     ATTO Benchmark    |     FWB Benchtest    |     Photoshop 5

Part one of this article detailed the specs and process of installing the Maxtor 10GB DiamondMax&153; Plus drive; this page will list comparison test results between the Maxtor drive and the stock Quantum Fireball ST 6GB drive. Test System: Apple G3/300 rev 2 OS 8.1 160MB SDRAM (Virtual Memory Off) PCI Cards installed: Game Wizard Voodoo2 8MB Card and Adaptec 2940U2W (no drives connected) Full extension load (including PC exchange) No Speed Doubler or Libmoto extensions used Both disks were prepped with Apple Drive Setup v 1.6.2

MacBench 5 Tests: Everyone wants to see MacBench scores so I'll show them first. Tests were run with disk cache settings of 512K, 1MB and 4MB as indicated in parenthesis in the graph below. Comments: As you can see in the graph, the Maxtor drive was significantly faster (about 1/3), using the exact same system file and hardware configuration. Both disks were optimized with Micromat's Tech Tool Pro 2 before testing and contained and identical set of minimal files needed for the tests (system folder, Macbench, etc.). For some reason the MB 5 scores were lower than I expected (for instance the stock 6GB disk scored 30% lower than the MB 5 baseline G3/300 in the disk test). I can only guess this was due to my specific hardware/software combination (installed software extensions/PCI cards). Regardless of this, the comparison scores show the Maxtor drive was consistently faster than the stock disk in this same configuration.

ATTO Tools 1.3.3: ATTO Tool's benchmark is one of my favorites due to its many options (test file size, etc.) and avoidance of using the system disk cache (optional). By not using the system's disk cache (RAM cache), you're isolating the results to the interface and disk itself. The peak R/W and sustained R/W scores are shown as well as a graph of IO rates over time. The following graphs show the results of both drive's tests at IO sizes of 32K, 128K, 512K, 2MB and 8MB. Smaller IO sizes would be indicative of database use for instance, where large file IO tests would tend to show how the drive would perform in video capture and applications like Photoshop. Note the excellent performance of the Maxtor drive in the 8MB sample size tests - almost 14MB/sec sustained rates. That's amazing performance for a drive at this price point (10GB for under $300) 8MB Tests: 2MB Tests: 512KB Tests: 128KB Tests: 32KB Tests: Comments: The Maxtor drive shows the biggest advantage on large file IO, where sustained rates are much higher than the 5400 RPM Quantum drive. At smaller file IO sizes, the peak rates of the two drives are similar, but the Maxtor's higher spindle speed (7200 RPM) delivers consistently better sustained rates. The stock Quantum IDE drive does very well compared to many standard SCSI drives I've seen however. See the SCSI disk test on the SCSI Features page for tests of SCSI disks, RAID and PCI SCSI controllers.

FWB Benchtest Results: The other popular benchmark I often use is FWB's Benchtest, a part of their Hard Disk Toolkit. The G3 happened to have version 2.5.2 of HDT, not the latest but I suspect the benchtest has not really been updated (and no HDT drivers were used so). As explained in part one of this article - I used Apple's drivers to ensure less headaches with future OS upgrades (remember the OS 8.5 issues?). The following are graphs of FWB's Benchtest results. Note the Quantum drive showed higher IOs/sec on reads than the Maxtor drive - and higher random read performance as well according to this benchmark. However look at sustained rates - the Maxtor shows much higher performance. Sustained Rate Results Random Read Results Random Read Results Sequential IO Results (Note the Stock Quantum scored much higher on this 512 Byte test size) Seek Test Results Apparently FWB's benchtest does not perform average seek time (1/3 stroke or full stroke tests) on IDE drives. Comments: Random R/W scores were lower in FWB's Benchtest with the Maxtor drive. At first I suspected this was due to the larger volume (more blocks) but after partitioning the drive into a 6GB volume (to match the Quantum) scores did not really change, so I suspect this is a driver issue perhaps. In some tests it almost looks like the drive's cache is not enabled, or that the cache is only 128KB, not 512KB (as per drive specs).

PhotoShop/Finder Tests: Here are the results of a few tests in the Finder (apps launching) and Photoshop (4.4MB file load and save). As a reminder, if you've copied Photoshop to another disk for testing, make sure you launch it and change the preferences to point to the new disk's plugins directory and make sure the scratch disk is set to the proper drive. For the file load test a stopwatch recorded the time from clicking the open button to having the image completely appear in Photoshop. Saves were timed from the save button click to the standard cursor returning. Test Maxtor Stock HD Launch PShop 5 4.85 sec 7.50 sec Load 4.4MB File 5.78 sec 7.28 sec Save 4.4MB File 1.62 sec 2.75 sec

Summary: The Maxtor DiamondMax Plus is an excellent value, with street prices under $300. Performance gains over the 6GB drive were substantial in most cases and overall performance compares well against SCSI drives costing twice as much. I suspect the performance delta would be even higher compared to the 4GB drives. The Maxtor's sustained transfer rates indicate it could easily handle any video capture task you would likely need, at hundreds less than a comparable performing wide or high-performance SCSI drive (and Apple G3 owners would need a PCI SCSI card since the stock G3 SCSI is limited to 5MB/sec maximum). Any way you look at it, bang for the buck or cost per megabyt, if you're looking for larger storage for your Apple G3 or IDE drive equipped Mac (ie: 6400), the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus deserves serious consideration. Note: most Maxtor drive kits contain the slower 5400 RPM standard DiamondMax drives (not the Plus). See the first part of this article for a tip on serial numbers that have been an indication of the Plus drive in the standard kits.

Related Links: Maxtor's Web Site DiamondMax™ Plus 2500 Product page DiamondMax™ Plus Data Sheet (PDF File) B&W G3 IDE Slave Drive Upgrade Other Site Disk Related Articles

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