We have graphed the results of the tests to show only the average read speeds of each drive on each interface.
Both charts show a very similar story so we can safely say that our results show an accurate picture of performance which are not affected by the testing software used.
There is a very clear and massive difference between all 3 interfaces. The USB 2.0 interface is clearly a bottleneck for both the drives tested. The eSATA interface shows huge gains for the 3.5” drive and significant improvements for the 2.5” drive showing that we are now seeing differences due to the drives themselves – the faster spin speed and larger cache memory of the 3.5” drive is clearly giving it a considerable advantage over the 2.5” drive.
The LAN... well, as we've already said it is a massive disappointment especially given that it is the major addition to this model over and above previous models in the range.
To attempt to transfer any significant amount of data at a paltry 6.1MB/s (taking the best result here) would be a painfully slow process and one which would surely annoy any user to the point of giving up altogether.
