Western Digital WD740ADFD: Bottled Lightning

Actual Application Performance

Our application benchmarks are designed to show application performance results with times being reported in minutes / seconds or seconds only, with lower scores being better. While these tests will show some differences between the drives it is important to understand we are no longer measuring the pure performance of the hard drive but how well our platform performs with each individual drive. The performance of a hard drive is an integral part of the computer platform but other factors such as memory, CPU, core logic, and even driver choice can play a major role in determining how well the hard drive performs in any given task. Also worth noting is that new features of Windows Vista - specifically SuperFetch - can further reduce the measured performance differences between hard drives.

Game Load Test

Our Sims 2 - Open for Business test measures the time it takes to load the initial portion of the game. Our application timer starts when the game icon is initiated until the neighborhood menu appears.


The results are basically the same as our iPeak results as the WD Raptor series continues to lead all drives, but the performance differences are not as drastic once we take into account the entire platform. The times might not show that great of a difference but over the course of game play we could always identify the system with a Raptor in it. Of course, our ears generally knew first but we could tell the differences in game startups and level loads with a Raptor equipped drive.

Game Level Load

This test centers on the actual loading of a playable level within our game selections. We run Battlefield 2 and measure the time it takes to load the Daqing Oilfields level. Our application timer begins when the start single player icon is initiated and ends when the join game icon is visible.


The WD1500ADFD Raptor continues its pattern of being the best available drive for the gaming enthusiast and our subjective opinion also matches the test scores. Of course, the difference in load times between the Raptor and the WD2500YD drive was only nine seconds but it seemed like an eternity as we repeated the tests for each drive. The WD740ADFD finishes right behind the WD1500ADFD once again proving that the improved firmware, increased cache size, and single platter design allows it to keep up with the 150GB drive.

AnyDVD 5.9.6

Our next test has us utilizing the "ripping" function of AnyDVD to copy the Office Space DVD file from our source drive to our test drive. Our DVD features 29 files totaling 7.55GB of data and is an excellent test for determining the write speed of a drive.


Our Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB drive scores extremely well in this test. The WD740ADFD also finishes ahead of the WD1500ADFD in this test where write speeds are extremely critical for the performance of the drive.

Nero Audio Encode

Our last test has us utilizing the audio encoding functions of Nero to convert our INXS Greatest Hits audio files in MP4 format to a high quality variable rate MP3 file for our portable player. Our test features 16 files totaling 137MB of data and is an excellent test for determining the read and write speed of a drive.


The test results show once again the amount of time a fast hard drive like the WD Raptor can save over the course of audio or video file manipulation session. In this case, the WD1500ADFD finishes just ahead of the 74MB Raptors where it handles small block sizes in sequential order slightly better.