ICY DOCK MB664US-1S: eSATA with a twist
by Dave Robinet on October 9, 2007 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Application Tests
Our application benchmarks are designed to show application performance results with times being reported in seconds, with lower scores being better. While these tests will show some differences between the drives it is important to understand we are not 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.
As the results of these tests can be largely predicted at this point in time, we'll reserve comment until the end.
AnyDVD 6.1
This 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.
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.
Game Level Load
This test centers on the actual loading of a playable level within our game selections. The Battlefield 2 test measures 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.
File Copy Performance
Our file copy test measures the time it takes to transfer our test folder that contains 29 files, 1 folder, and has 7.55GB of data from our source drive to the target test drive. This benchmark is disk write intensive and requires a fast storage system. The second test does copies the same folder on the test drive to another folder on the same drive.
Our application benchmarks are designed to show application performance results with times being reported in seconds, with lower scores being better. While these tests will show some differences between the drives it is important to understand we are not 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.
As the results of these tests can be largely predicted at this point in time, we'll reserve comment until the end.
AnyDVD 6.1
This 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.
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.
Game Level Load
This test centers on the actual loading of a playable level within our game selections. The Battlefield 2 test measures 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.
File Copy Performance
Our file copy test measures the time it takes to transfer our test folder that contains 29 files, 1 folder, and has 7.55GB of data from our source drive to the target test drive. This benchmark is disk write intensive and requires a fast storage system. The second test does copies the same folder on the test drive to another folder on the same drive.
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Homerboy - Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - link
ntSeanFL - Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - link
one complaint I have about the 559 is that the drive is always on...even if my machine is off. It would be much nicer if the drive could spin down after a pre-set adjustable time for people like me that just use it to back up each day/week, etc. Other external drives can do that.Anyone know if this new enclosure does it any differently?
floflooo - Thursday, October 11, 2007 - link
Please give me some references... I've been looking for external HDD cases that have power management.icthy - Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - link
I'm not an expert as you can see....I'm looking for a way to use my 3 ATA 133 drives; can I get an enclosure such as the Icy Dock that will deal with these?retrospooty - Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - link
There are enclosures out there that use the ATA 133 interface, but not eSATA onces. You will be able to find USB 2.0 and Firewire enclosures, just search for them.http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL...">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ternal+d...
icthy - Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - link
Thanks. Guess I should have figured that out myself.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - link
Um, what's the twist?StraightPipe - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
Well obviously, $70 is bad. Many decent enclosures start around $15-20.The PC power option is good. I keep an e-sata drive on my HTPC (it feels fast like it's in the box instead of on a wire). It would be great if the enclosure was powered by the PC (like this icydock). That way I could keep the USB and wall plug in a bag together for when I take the drive to a friend's PC. I can leave my PC connections on top of the PC case, and take the drive and it's cable bag to go.
pnyffeler - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
How would a Raptor perform in this case?Would it be too hot, given the lack of active cooling?
StraightPipe - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
Raptors peform about the same as that samsung they tested in the article.As drive densities have increased the transfer rates have too.
My raptor is no hotter than my 500GB WD RE2 drives in RAID0. I would assume temp is not a problem in normal (70-80F ambient) conditions.
The fact is for the price of a 150GB raptor you can get a 500-750GB drive that performs almost as well. Now that there are better performing drives available, those raptors just are not worth the cost anymore.