Performance in PCMark Vantage

To make this part of our test session complete, we are going to run the latest version of PCMark called Vantage. Compared with the previous versions, the benchmark has become more up-to-date and advanced in its selection of subtests as well as Windows Vista orientation. Each subtest is run ten times and the results of the ten runs are averaged.

Here is a brief description of each subtest:

• Windows Defender is when the HDD is under multithreaded load, one thread scanning files for malicious software.
• Gaming emulates the typical load on the disk subsystem when the user is playing a video game.
• Photo Gallery emulates loading of images from a photo gallery.
• Vista Start Up emulates the disk subsystem load when booting up Windows Vista.
• Movie Maker emulates video editing load.
• Media Center. This is the load on the hard disk when the user is running Windows Media Center.
• Media Player emulates the loading of files into Windows Media Player.
• Application Loading shows the drive’s speed when loading popular applications.

Basing on these subtests, the drive’s overall performance rating is calculated.

The 200GB Seagate takes first place when scanning files. The Fujitsu unexpectedly falls very far behind its opponents.

200GB drives are the best choice for computer games irrespective of the brand. The leading 200GB Seagate is followed very closely by the Hitachi. The Fujitsu is the slowest model, again.

The 200GB products are also the best when you view photos. The 160GB Seagate is in last place here.

The Fujitsu is on the losing side when booting the OS up. The 200GB Seagate wins by a narrow margin.

This version of PCMark seems to favor the new 200GB drive from Seagate.

Well, the Seagate’s performance is impressive but is only indicative of the speed of its cache buffer rather than platters. In other words, the HDD passed nearly the entire test by using cache memory only. Perhaps you can achieve the same performance from this HDD in some real-life applications, but not when you watch a movie or record a TV program. After all, the cache buffer is only 16 megabytes, not gigabytes, large.

Take note that the Hitachi with 16MB buffer could not perform this trick.

The 200GB products are in the lead again, the 200GB Seagate being somewhat better of the two. The Fujitsu is the slowest drive in this test.

Hitachi is again unrivalled in the Application Loading subtest.

Just as you could expect, the 200GB Seagate 7200.2 has the highest overall score and the Hitachi is second.