The chart below represents the accumulation
of all the previous tests. The Afreey is the best IDE "standard"
technology I’ve tested and the Plextor is the best SCSI technology I’ve tested.
The overall score is the addition of the averages from the slow and fast DAE
and audio tests. The price shown is the lowest found as of 02-26-2000. Notice
how the Kenwood is the most expensive drive. Notice how the Kenwood stomps
the competition! The Afreey is still a great value when is comes to cheap
IDE drives, but it spins at nearly 15K rpm-you’ll hear that I guarantee.
|
Drive Name & Rating
|
DAE Avg. (Slow)
|
DAE Avg. (Fast)
|
Data Avg. (Slow)
|
Data Avg. (Fast)
|
Overall Avg. (Data+DAE)
|
Lowest Price
|
|
Kenwood 72X
|
25.0
|
43.3
|
22.0
|
65.3
|
77.8
|
$110
|
|
Afreey 56X
|
28.1
|
28.1
|
28.1
|
41.8
|
63.1
|
$40
|
|
Plextor 40X Max
|
24.0
|
32.0*
|
24.0
|
31.0
|
55.5
|
$77
|
*Using Plextor’s unpublished Speed Down Disable. Without it,
this figure drops to 24X.
Real World Tests
The first test uses a CD with a whopping 460 MB single data file. The file
was simply copied and pasted to the hard drive. The Kenwood leaves for dead
the poor Plextor SCSI drive with a more than 54% increase in speed.
|
Drive
|
460MB Xfer
|
Avg. Rate
|
|
Kenwood 72X
|
69 sec’s
|
44.4X
|
|
Plextor 40X Max
|
107 sec’s
|
28.7X
|
The second test uses the Windows 98SE CD. The entire disc was copied and pasted
to the hard drive. Since the CD has thousands of files of various sizes, this
test is a good indicator of everyday performance. Again, the 72X’er tromps all
over the Plextor by nearly 31%.
|
Drive
|
Win98SE
|
Avg. Rate
|
|
Kenwood 72X
|
245 sec’s
|
17.0X
|
|
Plextor 40X Max
|
320 sec’s
|
13.0X
|
Conclusion
I hear people complain that the best always costs the most and can be somewhat
"fiddly" at times. While I haven’t personally found the Kenwood’s
Zen technology to be unreliable, I haven’t been intentionally rough on the
72X’er either. Retailing for $129 and selling on the web for a few dollars
less, the Kenwood 72X TrueX drive is hands down the fastest on the planet,
be it audio or data transfer rates. The nearly silent operation even at high
speeds is a welcome improvement over the 15K rpm screamers that max out at
56X. This CD-ROM is so fast, I’m going to copy 650 MB data CD’s to the hard
drive just to watch the Zen magic happen before my own eyes. Obviously highly
recommended.
William
Yaple
02/28/00
