This drive was the poorest performer in our roundup - but, as with its 200GB SATA cousin, the specifications were honest in pointing out the fact. It was the only 5400RPM drive in the roundup, and the manufacturer rated a seek time of 12.1 ms - making this the slowest drive of the pack even before we began testing. When we finished benchmarking, both Sysmark2002 and Drivespeed32 dutifully confirmed the DiamondMax Plus 16 to be the slowest performer.
Its price per gigabyte was edging close to $2, a pricetag close to $600 is not easy on the wallet; and the one-year warranty did not help its value rating.
Remember, you’re buying a 5400RPM drive. When you run applications on this beast, you will be sure to notice sluggish behaviour. But if you’re in a situation where you need a largest amount of space on one drive, on an old (non-sata) motherboard - this is an available option. But we recommend using it primarily for storage purposes only.
Note that if you buy two Samsung SP1614N (labs winner) drives, you will get a total of well performing 320GB for under $500.
It’s the sheer size of this drive that has granted it a premium position in our overall score - but purchase it if you only really need it.