The cornerstone of SR's new third-generation testbed is Intel's IPEAK SPT, a program that opens the way to unparalleled hard disk performance evaluation. The results delivered by IPEAK's tools are a bit startling; indeed, many readers refuse to accept the results since they don't align with long-held conceptions. More specifically, folks are used to the idea that SCSI hard drives, though highly optimized for random, non-localized, multi-user situations, always exhibit superior performance when compared to ATA drives even in desktop and single-user situations. As a result, when a manufacturer such as Western Digital pushes the envelope and delivers SCSI-like performance in an ATA drive with an 8-meg buffer and IPEAK results place it among the top SCSI drives for desktop performance, reception within the enthusiast community, ostensibly the target market for such a unit, is mixed. While many folks recognize that WD's latest drive truly is special, others imply that this showing proves that benchmarks can never really be accurate. It's time to let these misconceptions go! Such an argument begs premises from a preset conclusion, and that is irrational.