IBM DeskStar 60GXP 40GB HDD Review
IBM has been making some of the fastest drives in the market for the last little while now and their 60 GXP line is no different. Today, we're going to be looking at one of the smaller drives out there in the market, IBM's 40 GB DeskStar 60 GXP.
Yes, 40GB is considered small relatively now. In fact, it's the smallest capacity drive anyone makes now! Despite it's name, the 60GXP is not inferior to the older 75GXP's. The number in the name simply implies the largest capacity of each hard drive product line.
The IBM
40 GB DeskStar 60 GXP uses two 20 GB platters, has a rotational
speed of 7200 RPM and uses a the Ultra100 interface. Even though I'm not one for the "quiet PC", the one thing that irked many 75 GXP users was the noise level of the drive. Sure it's faster then everything else in it's class, but it was really too noisy to tolerate. The 60GXP models are much better in that regard.
| IBM Deskstar 40GB Deskstar 60 GXP |
 |
 |
- MFG: IBM
- Model No: 07N6659
- Est Drive Cost: $90 USD
- Cost/GB: ~$ 2.25 USD
|
| Parameter |
IBM DeskStar 60 GXP |
| - Capacity |
40 GB |
| - Areal Density |
20GB/platter |
| - Interface |
Ultra ATA/100 |
| - No. of Platters |
2 |
| - No. of Heads |
4 |
| - Buffer Size |
2 MB |
| - Rotational Speed |
7200 RPM |
| - Acoustic Noise |
3.0 bels |
|
|
| - Avg. Rotational Latency |
4.17 |
| - Internal Data Rate (max) |
494 Mb/s |
| - Avg. Seek Time (Read) |
8.5 ms |
- Avg. Track-to-Track
Seek Time
(Read) |
1.2 ms |
| Approx cost/GB: |
$2.25 |
| EST unit cost: |
$90 USD |
The DeskStar doesn't really stand out now, but when it was
first released it was quite a bit more advanced then it's
competitors.
Still, let's see how this thing performs! The HDD was attached
to the VIA 8233 southbridge which has native support for Ultra/100
drives.
| test system specs: |
|
|
computer hardware: |
|
| processor: |
amd athlonxp 2000+ |
| clock
speed: |
1.67 ghz |
| motherboard: |
asus a7v266-e |
| chipset: |
via kt266a |
| videocard: |
asus v8200ti500 pure |
| network
card: |
allied telesyn at-2700tx 10/100 |
| memory: |
2x 256mb corsair xms pc2400 ddr ram |
| hard drive: |
ibm deskstar 60 gxp 40 gb hdd |
| cdrom: |
16x pioneer dvd-rom |
| floppy: |
mitsumi 1.44mb |
| heatsink: |
foxconn generic |
| powersupply: |
antec 400w |
|
|
|
software setup: |
windows 98se
via 4 in 1 4.37
detonatorxp 22.80 |
| benchmarks: |
sisoft sandra 2002 pro
hd tach 2.61
winbench
99 |
Faster then the
reference, it's not really a shock. IBM's have always made pretty fast
drives.
|
HDTach 2.61 |
|
IBM DeskStar 60 GXP |
| Access time (ms) |
13.8 ms |
|
Read burst speed (mbps) |
Over 80MB/s |
| Read speed max (kps) |
41618 kps |
| Read speed min (kps) |
15447 kps |
| Read speed avg (kps) |
30781.7 kps |
| CPU utilization |
9.7% |
The DeskStar 60 GXP doesn't really do too well
in the HDTach scores. A slow 13.8 ms access time isn't really characteristic of
IBM. It bursts over 80 MB/s which isn't bad, however, average read speed is quite
slow at 30781kps and the CPU utilization is very high at 9.7%!
No background
applications were running and the hard drive was defragged before the tests.
| WinBench 99 |
|
IBM DeskStar 60 GXP |
| Disk Transfer Rate |
|
| - Beginning: |
36500 KB/s |
| - End: |
21300 KB/s |
| Disk Access Time: |
11.5 ms |
| CPU Utilization: |
5.50% |
While the scores the IBM DeskStar 60GXP pumps out with Winbench99
are respectable, they're now easily overshadowed by newer drives. The
CPU utilization in Winbench99 is high also at 5.5%.
IBM have always been considered top of the
line, hence their price premium over other manufacturers. In general the drives
are really worth it now unless you want the IBM name.
The 40GB IBM DeskStar 60 GXP is a
decent performer in its class but unfortunately other hard drives are just as fast, and less
expensive per/GB. Hopefully IBM's new 120 GXP line of drives can recapture some of
their old glory back.
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