Testing:

The system in today's tests will be a system build based on the ASUS P6T Deluxe. This has become our primary test rig for testing hard drives. I know this is not a notebook computer, but in order to standardize our testing, it is important to use the same test system and configuration each and every time.

For the bulk of the hard drive benchmarking I'll be using Hard Drive Tach. HD Tach has proven very reliable for us over the years and I like to stick with what works. However, I will include a few HD Tune benchmarks as well.

Single Hard Drive Test
HD Tach: Quick Bench / 8MB Zones

Right away the Momentus 5400.6 rips out some impressive benchmarks. With HD Tach quick bench, we receive a burst rate of 229 MB/s, an average read speed of 69.6 MB/s and an average write speed of 51.1. Yes, the average write speed is considerably lower than the read speed, but this is true with many hard drives we have tested.

Single Hard Drive Test
HD Tach: Long Bench / 32MB Zones

Next we test the drive with HD Tach by using the Long Benchmark. Once again we see very impressive numbers for a notebook hard drive.

Single Hard Drive Test
HD Tune

Next up is HD Tune. Many of our readers know this isn't one of my favorite benchmarking programs, but many of our readers swear by it. On the single hard drive test, HD Tune shows the following information:

With HD Tune we see some good data transfer rates while at the same time a low CPU usage of only 3.1%. Exactly what we want in a notebook since lower CPU usage means less power consumption.