The time has finally come: all major storage manufacturers now offer their top-of-the-line storage devices with a SATA interface. While capacity is still at 250 GB, bigger models are anticipated as early as next spring. Seagate delivers a maximum of 200 GB, which is why we will test the 7200.7 model in a separate article.

The fastest was Western Digital with its WD2500JD, followed closely by the DiamondMax Plus 9, while the 7K250 from Hitachi has also been available for a short time. We want to settle the question of who builds the best premium drive.

These mega hard drives are still priced beyond the reach of most users. And 250 GB is generally more than your average Windows user can fill up - video apps excluded. The test results are valid nonetheless, since all smaller models of the same product line are usually based on the same technology, ergo they offer very similar performance values.

In real numbers what we're talking about right now is a little more than 80 GB per platter, enabling the stately size of 250 GB to be achieved. In order to attain intermediate sizes of around 120 GB, the magnetic disks are purely and simply not used to capacity.

This test was concerned solely with superlatives: who achieves the highest performance with Serial ATA?