MP drive confusion

[cliffa]

I have a 3,1 MP that's about to be replaced with the new MP (assuming it ever goes on sale). I've been cataloging my internal drives preparing to port them over to the new machine and found something odd.

I have three Seagate SATA drives and used the BlackMagic utility to test transfer speeds, getting (to me) unexpected read/write speeds

1) 5400 rpm 3 Gb/s, 100/95
2) 7200 rpm 3 Gb/s, 40/30
3) 7200 rpm 6 Gb/s, 85/80

By way of comparison, my external Firewire drive clocked in at 80/60.

Am I misunderstanding something here? I wouldn't have expected internal SATA drives to be even close to a Firewire drive, much less be slower. Also, I thought a higher rpm would translate into faster transfer, not slower.

 

[Bear]

...
1) 5400 rpm 3 Gb/s, 100/95
2) 7200 rpm 3 Gb/s, 40/30
3) 7200 rpm 6 Gb/s, 85/80
...
Also, I thought a higher rpm would translate into faster transfer, not slower.

It depends on a number of factors. However, drive 2 looks rather slow. How full is it? That could've affected the tests or the drive might be going bad.

As for Drive 1 and 3, it depends on the capacity and model of the drive. Although drive 3 could've been affected depending on how contiguous the free space was.