Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64. We use this program to test the storage options in the system.
The 5,400 rpm 2.5 inch mechanical drive isn't a great performer, peaking between 85 Mb/s and 95 Mb/s in the sequential tests. Obviously this drive was chosen to lower the cost of the Gladiator build, but it is a major bottleneck for overall system performance.
ATTO results mirror the CrystalDiskMark findings. the drive is limited in speed. Maximum sequential performance in this test is around 100 MB/s in both the read and write tests.
How does this affect real world performance? The system takes around 50 seconds to boot up and become responsive and overall performance is very weak. We would try and swap this out for a small, expensive Solid State Drive, and use this mechanical drive for storage duties only.