When this drive originally came out I
think Quantum and Maxtor were still two separate companies. So while this a rather
dated drive these days, it works well representing the lower end of
the consumers buying spectrum - after all, many purchases are driven by price first
when all you really need is 20GB of space.
The Quantum Fireball Plus AS is
a two platter 7200RPM 40GB hard drive with Ultra ATA/100 support
and 40GB of storage. The Fireball plus comes with 2MB of cache
buffer and demonstrates a average seek time of 8.4ms, and 0.8ms for track-to-track
seek. It produces 3.4 bels of noise on average.
| Quantum Fireball Plus AS 40GB |
 |
 |
- MFG: Maxtor/Quantum
- Model No: Fireball Plus AS
- Est Drive Cost: $115USD
- Cost/GB: ~$2.88 USD
| Memory Type |
 | |
Comparison Drive Specs
| Parameter |
Quantum Fireball Plus
AS |
Samsung SP4004H |
|
| - Capacity |
40.0 GB |
40.0 GB |
|
| - Areal Density |
20GB/platter |
20GB/platter |
|
| - Interface |
Ultra ATA/100 |
Ultra ATA/100 |
|
| - No. of Platters |
2 |
2 |
|
| - No. of Heads |
4 |
4 |
|
| - Buffer Size |
2 MB |
2 MB |
|
| - Rotational Speed |
7200 RPM |
7200 RPM |
|
| - Acoustic Noise |
3.4 bels |
3.1 bel |
|
|
|
|
|
| - Avg. Rotational Latency |
4.17 |
4.17 ms |
|
| - Internal Data Rate (max) |
N/A |
473 Mbit/s |
|
| - Avg. Seek Time (Read) |
8.4 ms |
9.0 ms |
|
- Avg. Track-to-Track
Seek Time
(Read) |
0.8 ms |
0.8 ms |
|
| Approx cost/GB: |
$2.88 |
$2.45 |
|
| EST unit cost: |
$115 USD |
$98 USD |
|
Test Bed System
Specs:
Each of the test hard drives was cleanly formatted and set to one partition
of the maximum size. Hard drives were connected to the test motherboard via an
80 wire ATA-100 compliant cable in groups of two. No other devices (like CD
ROM's for instance) were connected to the same IDE channel as that of the drives
being tested.
| Test System
Specs |
| Computer: |
Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz
MSI 845Pro Motherboard
ProLink GF2 Ti200
Video card
TwinMos PC166 256MB SDRAM
10/100 Realtek NIC
Enermax
430W PSU |
| Software: |
Windows 2000 SP2
All devices had their respectable latest drivers
|
| Benchmarks: |
HD Tach 2.61
Winbench 99 V1.2 |
Drive Performance Benchmarks:
| Access Time
(ms) |
 |
|
Quantum Fireball Plus AS |
Samsung SP4004H |
| Winbench 99 |
13.3 ms |
13.6 ms |
| HDTach 1.61 |
12.8 ms |
13.7 ms |
The
Quantum drive showed us just slightly better access times than the Samsung SpinPoint
was able to produce. The FireBall Plus shows a bit of a lead in the HDTach test,
but other than that the test results are just about dead on. Both drives feature two
platters and a spindle speed of 7200RPM.
HDTach
2.61:
Hard drive Tach 2.61 is standard for benchmarking drives and provides a
wealth of data on the peculiarities of each drive tested. The software tests
four major points; access time, burst speed, read speed and percent CPU
utilization.
 |
| Quantum Fireball Plus AS Hard Drive Performance
Graph |
| HDTach 2.61 |
|
|
Quantum Fireball Plus AS |
Samsung SP4004H |
| Access time (ms) |
12.8 ms |
13.7 ms |
|
Read burst speed (mbps) |
57.4 mbps |
53.6 mbps |
| Read speed max (kps) |
37013 kps |
36106 kps |
| Read speed min (kps) |
18349 kps |
18128 kps |
| Read speed avg (kps) |
30029 kps |
28547 kps |
| CPU ultilization |
6.2% |
6.0% |
|
|
|
The Quantum drive outperforms the SpinPoint with an average Burst Speed of 57.4 mbps, and
read speed of 37013 kps. The only loss in ground to the Spinpoint was evident in
terms of CPU utilization where the Fireball plus utilized 6.2% to the 6.0% of the Samsung
drive.
WinBench 99:
| WinBench 99 |
|
|
Quantum Fireball Plus
AS |
Samsung SP4004H |
| Disk Transfer Rate |
|
|
| - Beginning: |
35400 kbs |
34500 kbs |
| - End: |
20300 kbs |
20300 kbs |
| Disk Access Time: |
13.3 ms |
13.6 ms |
| CPU Utilization: |
1.25% |
1.25% |
|
|
|
Winbench is useful for testing drives on a more realistic set of measurements, as the tests
are based on real software applications utilizing the drives. Between
the two 7200RPM drives there wasn't much of a discernible difference. The Quantum
and the Samsung both showed a 1.25% CPU utilization and nearly identical
access times.
The Quantum Fireball Plus AS and Samsung SpinPoint hard
drives are very evenly matched in the sets of benchmarks we threw at them. In terms of cost, the Quantum drive
is a bit more expensive, and goes for about $2.88/GB compared
to just $2.45/GB for the Samsung drive. However the largest influencer will
probably be the Quantum name as more people are familiar with their brand in
North America.
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