The test system used in this review was an HP dc7900. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz CPU, 2GB of DDR2 800MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250310AS 250GB SATA hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX570 256MB PCIe graphics card, Intel 82567LM-3 gigabit network card and HighPoint Rocket 620 SATA 6Gb/s controller. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the Plextor PX-128M2S, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, HD Tune Pro 4.50 and Iometer.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
 Plextor PX-128M2S (SATA 6Gb/s) |
 Plextor PX-128M2S (SATA 3Gb/s) |
According to Plextor, the PX-128M2S is capable of reading at 420MB/s and writing at 210MB/s when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s port. While the drive performed well, its sequential read and write speeds came up a bit short of these numbers in our tests.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the PX-128M2S's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
When connected to the HighPoint Rocket 620 SATA 6Gb/s controller card, the PX-128M2S had average read and write speeds of 298.7 MB/s and 173.7 MB/s, respectively, as well as a burst speed of 182.4 MB/s. Using the motherboard's SATA 3 Gb/s ports didn't have much of an effect on the drive's write speeds. However, its read speeds dropped by nearly 80 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the PX-128M2S's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 Plextor PX-128M2S (SATA 6Gb/s) |
 Plextor PX-128M2S (SATA 3Gb/s) |
When tested with ATTO, the PX-128M2S's read speeds topped out at about 393 MB/s and its write speeds at 214 MB/s.
