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December 29, 2006
Using the Maxline Pro 500GB with a Mac Pro
A Review of the Maxtor Maxline Pro Model 7H500F0 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
By Arthur Whalem
Maxtor is currently selling the Maxline Pro 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s hard drive model 7H500F0. AMUG found it listed at Newegg.com and thought it might provide an interesting review . The Maxtor Maxline III 7V300F0 is a great performing SATA hard drive and we wanted to know how the Maxline Pro 500GB model 7H500F0 might compare.
Even though Seagate has purchased Maxtor, inspection of the Maxline Pro 500GB model 7H500F0 SATA hard drive indicates that this 3.5" hard disk drive is still a Maxtor developed product and not a rebranded Seagate model.
Features
The Maxtor Maxline Pro model 7H500F0 SATA 3.5" hard drive comes with a five year warranty. It has a SATA 3.0Gb/s interface with a jumper that can reduce the speed to 1.5Gb/s if needed. It is a 500GB hard drive that formats to 465.34GB when installed inside an Apple Mac Pro. A 16MB cache is provided just like the 7V300F0. It is reported to have an average seek time of 8.5ms and an average latency of 4.17ms. Native command queuing is supported and it is RoHS compliant. The Maxline Pro 500GB utilizes four disk platters and eight heads.
Some of these specifications are similar to the Maxline III 300GB 7V300F0. The real question is how does it perform in an Apple Mac Pro?
Performance
In this test, an Apple Mac Pro 2.66GHz running Mac OS X 10.4.8 was used with the Maxline Pro model 7H500F0. The hard drive was mounted internally in the Mac Pro. DiskTester 10GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test. DiskTester 2.0 measures the combined performance of the hard drive and the Mac OS X operating system. It is a Terminal application which requires using a command line executable. Using the command: ./disktester run-area-test --chunk-size 128M --test-size 10G --delta-percent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester 2.0 to work testing how the hard drive will perform when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on. This same test was also run with a Maxline III model 7V300F0 and a Seagate 320GB 7200.10 with firmware version 3.AAE for comparison.Apple Mac Pro Internal SATA Hard Drive Test
 Seagate 7200.10 320 GB ST3320620AS |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 60.8 | 63.2 | 65.9 | 68.4 | 45.6 | 73.7 |
| 10% | 61.1 | 63.1 | 65.1 | 67.1 | 45.1 | 72.5 |
| 20% | 60.3 | 61.8 | 63.3 | 64.9 | 44.9 | 71.8 |
| 30% | 58.2 | 59.2 | 61.6 | 62.7 | 43.8 | 69 |
| 40% | 56.8 | 57.7 | 59.3 | 60.6 | 42.6 | 66.4 |
| 50% | 54.6 | 55.7 | 57 | 57.9 | 41.5 | 63.7 |
| 60% | 51.7 | 52.3 | 55 | 55.3 | 40 | 60.1 |
| 70% | 48.6 | 49.1 | 51.5 | 51.2 | 37.8 | 55.5 |
| 80% | 45.4 | 45.9 | 48.6 | 48.4 | 35.5 | 50.6 |
| 90% | 40 | 40.3 | 44.6 | 44.3 | 32.5 | 44.6 |
| 100% | 34.9 | 35 | 40.5 | 40.3 | 29.2 | 38.9 |
| Average | 52 | 53 | 55.7 | 56.5 | 39.9 | 60.6 |
| Size | 465.34GB | 279.08GB | 297.69GB |
The data above indicates that the 7V300F0 provides the best over all performance in this particular test. While the Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drive provides great read speed, the write speed is limited to approximately 46MB/sec when used as an individual internal Mac Pro hard drive with firmware 3.AAE or below. Seagate is working on a fix for this, but I have not been able to test a 320GB 7200.10 that did not have this issue.
Based on the results above, the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 appears to perform slower than the 7V300F0 in this DiskTester sequential performance test. Some users may argue that the 7H500F0 will actually score better against the Maxline III 300GB model 7V300F0 hard drive once both drives have a significant amount of data on them. We will test that hypothesis during this review.
In the next table, each hard drive was mounted using a Sonnet Tempo E4P and the same DiskTester performance test was run again with the Mac Pro 2.66 GHz computer. The E4P was using the Mac Pro driver version 2.1 and mounted in slot 4 configured as an eight lane (8x) PCIe interface. The Seagate 320GB performs very well with the DiskTester run area test while mounted on a PCIe SATA host adapter. The 46MB/sec write speed limitation disappears when the 7200.10 Seagate hard drive is not used with the Apple Mac Pro internal SATA bus.Mac Pro External Tempo E4P SATA Hard Drive Test
 Seagate 7200.10 320 GB ST3320620AS |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 63.3 | 64 | 69.2 | 69.6 | 73.2 | 73.7 |
| 10% | 63.1 | 63.6 | 67.9 | 67.9 | 72.2 | 72.5 |
| 20% | 62 | 62.6 | 65.6 | 65.5 | 71.6 | 71.8 |
| 30% | 59.4 | 59.9 | 63.7 | 63.6 | 68.8 | 69 |
| 40% | 57.8 | 58.3 | 61.2 | 61.2 | 66.1 | 66.3 |
| 50% | 55.4 | 56 | 58.7 | 58.7 | 63.4 | 63.6 |
| 60% | 52.1 | 52.7 | 56.2 | 56.2 | 59.8 | 60.1 |
| 70% | 48.8 | 49.4 | 52.1 | 52.1 | 55.1 | 55.5 |
| 80% | 45.5 | 46.1 | 48.9 | 49 | 50.3 | 50.6 |
| 90% | 40.2 | 40.5 | 44.8 | 44.9 | 44.4 | 44.6 |
| 100% | 35 | 35.3 | 40.6 | 40.8 | 38.6 | 38.9 |
| Average | 53 | 53.5 | 57.2 | 57.2 | 60.3 | 60.6 |
| Size | 465.34GB | 279.08GB | 297.69GB |
As you can see in the Sonnet Tempo E4P table above the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 provides the slowest DiskTester results when empty hard drives are compared.
I wanted to find out how a single 7H500F0 would perform with three 7V300F0 hard drives in a four drive direct connect stripped RAID set. Once the test was completed the results indicate that the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 slows the DiskTester performance of the RAID by approximately 20MB per second when empty as compared to using four 7V300F0 models instead. However, once the RAID was 50% full the 7H500F0 was able to perform just as well as if a 4th Maxline 7V300F0 hard drive had been used. The reason is that when the 300GB is half full, the 500GB is only 30% full allowing it to stay faster for longer than the 300GB.Mac Pro 4-Bay Tempo E4P Striped RAID Test
| Area Full | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 276 | 276 | 256 | 258 |
| 10% | 271 | 269 | 257 | 258 |
| 20% | 264 | 262 | 255 | 255 |
| 30% | 254 | 254 | 249 | 250 |
| 40% | 251 | 249 | 245 | 246 |
| 50% | 236 | 234 | 239 | 238 |
| 60% | 227 | 226 | 231 | 230 |
| 70% | 209 | 209 | 212 | 210 |
| 80% | 201 | 199 | 202 | 200 |
| 90% | 178 | 178 | 181 | 181 |
| 100% | 152 | 152 | 157 | 157 |
| Average | 229 | 228 | 226 | 226 |
| Size | 1.09TB | 1.09TB |
Staying with a single hard drive model when configuring striped RAID sets provides optimal performance. However, this substitution test allows us to recognize that the Maxline Pro 500GB 7H500F0 is not as fast as the Maxline III 7V300F0 when empty, but once each hard drive has 140GB of data on it, the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 does not reduce the RAID speed. You can see how this works by comparing the 30% full 7H500F0 single drive DiskTester score of 58.2MB/sec. against the 7V300F0 50% full score of 57MB/sec.
I was also interested in how the Maxline Pro 500GB 7H500F0 would perform in a 5-bay SATA PM enclosure with four Maxline III 7V300F0 models. These results show that when configured as a striped RAID set the 7H500F0 will slightly reduce the read performance of the SATA PM RAID until it is 30% full. These striped RAID set tests are simply for performance evaluation. In real world usage a 500GB would usually never be striped with 300GB models as this limits the usage of the 500GB to about 280GB. The volume size of each drive in a striped RAID set is limited to the formatted size of the smallest hard drive partition in the group.Mac Pro 5-Bay SATA PM E4P Striped RAID Test
| Area Full | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 210 | 246 | 210 | 244 |
| 10% | 211 | 246 | 211 | 243 |
| 20% | 211 | 246 | 211 | 241 |
| 30% | 212 | 245 | 211 | 245 |
| 40% | 211 | 245 | 211 | 244 |
| 50% | 212 | 241 | 212 | 241 |
| 60% | 212 | 246 | 212 | 244 |
| 70% | 212 | 245 | 212 | 242 |
| 80% | 212 | 240 | 212 | 240 |
| 90% | 212 | 219 | 212 | 220 |
| 100% | 179 | 189 | 181 | 190 |
| Average | 209 | 237 | 209 | 236 |
| Size | 1.36TB | 1.36TB |
The bottom line is that the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 is slower than the Maxline III 7V300F0 with large block sequential file transfers when both hard drives are empty. Once 140GB of data is loaded on to each hard drive the 500GB 7H500F0 will outperform the Maxline III 7V300F0 300GB hard drive.
Copy/Duplicate TestsIn this test, the 7H500F0, 7V300F0 and the Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drives each contain the same 29.3 GB of data on them and they were each mounted as boot drives inside a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz with 3GB of memory running Mac OS X 10.4.8. A 4.25GB folder (containing two video files) was copied to and from a Seagate 250GB four drive striped RAID set (930GB). The copy time was recorded along with the time to repair permissions and duplicate the 4.25GB folder on each drive. Xbench and DiskTester readings of the hard drive performance and the overall computer performance were recorded.
| Mac Pro 2.66 GHz | 7H500F0 | 7V300F0 | Seagate 320GB |
| Copy 4.25GB to RAID | 1:08 minutes | 1:04 minutes | 1:00 minutes |
| Copy 4.25GB from RAID | 1:09 minutes | 1:04 minutes | 1:36 minutes |
| Repair Permissions | 7 seconds | 7 seconds | 7 seconds |
| Duplicate 4.25GB | 2:28 minutes | 2:21 minutes | 2:37 minutes |
| Xbench 1.1.3 Disk/Overall | 112/188 | 116/187 | 54/149 |
| DiskTester 10GB Read/Write | 62.8/60.2 | 65.5/62.4 | 71.8/48.7 |
As you can see above, the Maxline III 7V300F0 was a little faster than the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 in each test when 29.3 GB of data was loaded on each hard drive. The Seagate 320GB ST3320620AS model 7200.10 was at a disadvantage because of the write speed limitation that exists when using the Seagate 7200.10 with the internal Apple Mac Pro SATA bus.
Random AccessIn this test, an Apple Mac Pro 2.66GHz running Mac OS X 10.4.8 was used with the Maxline Pro model 7H500F0 to measure random access performance. QuickBench 3.0 was used to randomly read and write data across the hard disk. Providing repeatable random access performance results with QuickBench can be difficult. Different runs can produce significantly different results. In order to try to obtain a value that users can duplicate each test was run with 100 cycles. This was done three different times for each test. The middle result was selected and reported in the chart below. As random performance results can fluctuate, I would factor in a margin of error of +/- 5% when comparing results in this table. This same test was also run with a Maxline III model 7V300F0 and a Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drive with firmware version 3.AAE for comparison.Apple Mac Pro Internal SATA QuickBench Random Test
Seagate 7200.10 320 GB ST3320620AS |
| Size | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| 64k | 116 | 68 | 108 | 64 | 101 | 25 |
| 128k | 129 | 85 | 118 | 61 | 126 | 36 |
| 256k | 85 | 93 | 90 | 92 | 140 | 33 |
| 512k | 62 | 62 | 60 | 57 | 140 | 49 |
| 1024 | 65 | 58 | 68 | 60 | 35 | 49 |
| Average | 91.4 | 73.2 | 88.8 | 66.8 | 108.4 | 38.4 |
| Size | 465.34GB | 279.08GB | 297.69GB |
The results above reflect that the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 provides the best overall random access results. However, the Maxline III
7V300F0 is close. The QuickBench 3.0 random read performance results for the Seagate 320GB 7200.10 are considerably lower than the Maxtor models but the random write score for 512k files and smaller is remarkably high. Now lets see how the same random access tests compare when using the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter with the Apple Mac Pro.Apple Mac Pro Ext. E4P SATA QuickBench Random Test
Seagate 7200.10 320 GB ST3320620AS |
| Size | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| 64k | 116 | 72 | 106 | 52 | 97 | 16 |
| 128k | 128 | 91 | 116 | 62 | 127 | 20 |
| 256k | 72 | 99 | 85 | 84 | 142 | 34 |
| 512k | 62 | 60 | 59 | 54 | 134 | 47 |
| 1024 | 64 | 60 | 69 | 57 | 67 | 57 |
| Average | 88.4 | 76.4 | 87 | 61.8 | 113.4 | 34.8 |
| Size | 465.34GB | 279.08GB | 297.69GB |
While mounted externally with the Sonnet Tempo E4P, the Maxline Pro model 7H500F0 again provides a little better random access performance than the Maxline III 7V300F0. The slow random read performance of the Seagate 320GB 7200.10 model will show up when accessing lots of small data files. For example, a large Aperture library may open significantly faster with one of the Maxline hard drives than with the Seagate 320GB.
Size, Power, Heat & Weight
The Maxline Pro 7H500F0 formats to a size of 465.34GB on a Macintosh. The Seagate 320GB 7200.10 model provides at formatted volume of 297.69 GB. The Maxtor 300GB Maxline III 7V300F0 formats to 279.16 GB. According to the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, the Seagate 320GB 7200.10 SATA hard drive is the most energy efficient of the three units when copying data. However, the Seagate 7200.10 and the Maxline Pro both draw about 30 watts of power during the initial hard drive startup phase. The Maxtor Maxline Pro 7H500F0 weighs more and uses a little more power than the other two hard drives in this comparison. However, it also provides more than 50% more storage space.
The heat test was completed while each hard drive was mounted in bay #1 of a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz. A second Seagate 320GB hard drive was mounted in bay #2. Each hard drive was rotated into bay #1 of the Mac Pro for this test and configured to copy data for 90 minutes. At the end of each test the temperature was displayed using Hardware Monitor 4.0 and recorded in Fahrenheit. The Maxline Pro 7H500F0 hard drive created the most heat. The Maxline 7V300F0 was able to complete the same test while measuring 3.6 degrees cooler. Mounting the Maxline Pro 500GB model 7H500F0 hard drive in bay #2 of the Mac Pro will provide better cooling capability as that bay provides more air circulation. The ambient room temperature during these tests was 74 degrees Fahrenheit. You can view the results in the table below.
| Power Usage in Watts | 7H500F0 | 7V300F0 | ST3320620AS |
| Startup | 30 | 26 | 30 watts |
| Idle | 10 | 8 | 8 watts |
| Copying | 14 | 12 | 11 watts |
| - | |||
| Heat Test - 90 min. Copy | 120.2 | 116.6 | 118.4F. MP Bay 1 |
| Weight in ounces | 24.2 | 21.8 | 20.8 ounces |
| Format Size in GB | 465.34 | 279.08 | 297.69 GB |
This article was designed to find out if the Maxtor Pro 500GB model 7H500F0 hard drive provides enhanced or similar performance levels compared to the Maxline III 300GB model 7V300F0. The 7V300F0 is a favorite for many Apple Mac Pro users as it is inexpensive and provides great performance when mounted on the internal Apple Mac Pro SATA bus.The results of these tests indicate that the Maxline III 300GB model 7V300F0 provides faster sequential read and write performance than the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 when the 7V300F0 has less than 130GB of data on the hard drive. Once the 300GB model 7V300F0 is 50% full or more the 500GB Maxline Pro 7H500F0 will provide faster performance as only 30% of the 500GB hard drive is required to accommodate that same 140GB of data.
The Maxline III 7V300F0 will be a faster choice when utilized empty with large striped RAID sets or for boot drives with less than 100GB of data on them. However, the Maxline Pro model 7H500F0 provides 50% more storage space and provides slightly better random access performance. Another advantage is that the current sales price for the Maxline Pro model 7H500F0 500GB can be less than $150. Users that know they will want to store more than 200GB of data on their hard drive will find that the Maxline Pro 500GB provides an excellent performing option.
It is not surprising that the Maxline III 300GB provides faster DiskTester results when empty. Typically, the smallest drive in any particular hard drive model line has the opportunity to perform faster. Less drive platters to access can translate into higher performance. In the Seagate 7200.9 series, the 160GB model provided the fastest Disktester results. In the Seagate 7200.10 series, the 250GB model provides the fastest DiskTester results. This review indicates that the Maxline 300GB 7V300F0 also has the ability to provide some of the fastest DiskTester results available with the Maxline series.
During these tests the Maxline Pro 500GB produced a low pitch click sound when accessing data. The sound is more noticable than either of the other two hard drive models. While I would not classify it as loud, it is not silent either. The sound is distinctive enough that I could tell when the Maxline Pro 500GB was accessing data inside the Mac Pro. As the other
two hard drives produce a little less noise when accessing data, I was not able to identify them by sound alone.If the Seagate 320GB ST3320620AS model 7200.10 had a firmware update that fixed the write speed bug when used on the internal Apple Mac Pro SATA bus and improved the random read speeds so that Xbench could allow it to score closer to the Maxline III 7V300F0, it might be a new contender for internal use in an Apple Mac Pro. When used with a SATA host adapter the sequential DiskTester 2.0 performance of the Seagate 320GB ST3320620AS model 7200.10 is the highest of any of these three units. In addition, the 46MB/sec write speed limitation disappears when the 7200.10 is used in a striped RAID set configuration inside an Apple Mac Pro.
Pros
Provides 186GB more hard drive space than the Maxline III 7V300F0.
Performs faster than Maxline III 7V300F0 when 140GB+ of data is installed.
Slightly faster random access performance than 7V300F0.
Good Performance.
Includes a five year warranty.
Can be found on sale for less than $150.
Cons
Not quite as fast as the Maxline III 7V300F0 when empty.
Uses a little more power than the Maxline III 7V300F0.
May be a little louder than Maxline III 7V300F0.
Generates more heat than the Maxline III 7V300F0.
Maxline Pro 7H500F0 gets 4 AMUGs out of 5!
When the Maxline III 7V300F0 does not provide enough space for your data storage needs the Maxline Pro is an awesome 500GB alternate. It provides great random read and write performance and good sequential read and write performance with a substantial amount of data loaded on the hard drive. The five year warranty also protects your purchase from a premature failure. If a hard drive lasts five years it is usually a dinosaur by then, but it is nice to know that you can count on a replacement should the need arise.
I would like to see the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 improved to provide the same sequential read and write performance as the 7V300F0 when empty and to operate a little quieter and cooler. However, the performance of the Maxline Pro 7H500F0 under a heavy data load is so good, it is really hard to find any serious fault with this high capacity 500GB hard drive.
Contact Information:
Maxtor Corporation
500 McCarthy Boulevard
Milpitas, CA 95035 USA
Phone: 408-894-5000
http://www.maxtor.com/
Copyright 2006
Arizona Macintosh Users Group, Inc. (AMUG)
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