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Quantum Fireball SE QM36400SE-A

Average Score

Business Disk WinMark 98 (KB/s)

1254

SS/Database

1128

WP

1522

Publishing

1144

Browsers

1426

Task Switching

1822

High-End Disk WinMark 98 (KB/s)

3722

AVS/Express 3.1

2306

Frontpage 97

2920

MicroStation 95

7032

Photoshop 4.0

3038

Premiere 4.2

6952

PV-Wave 6.1

2720

Visual C++ 5.0

8220

Disk/Read Random Access (ms)

16.3

Disk/Read Transfer Rate (KB/s)

Beginning

11800

End

7170

Disk/Read CPU Utilization (%)

5.9

Transfer Rate (KB/s)

11758

Though it does not enjoy as significant a retail presence as Maxtor and Western Digital, Quantum drives are quite often found as the stock unit in retail systems. Quantum has two offerings in the 6.4 GB Ultra ATA range, the performance-oriented Fireball SE along the value-oriented Bigfoot TX (see sidebar). Despite a relatively low 128kb buffer size, the Fireball SE trailed only IBM’s Deskstar 5 in performance, edging out Maxtor’s DiamondMax to finish second in both the Business and High-End Disk WinMarks. The Fireball is also very reasonably priced through mail-order, OEM packaging. Above-average performance along with competitive pricing make the Quantum Fireball SE an easy value recommendation.

 

Maxtor DiamondMax 86480D6 Seagate Medalist Pro ST36451A
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