Drive burst speed vs sustained transfer rate?

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Just been running various benchmarks on my drives/arrays just out of general interest really.

Of the two benchmarks, burst speed and sustained transfer rate, I was wondering which gives the best indication of how well drives perform against each other in real life situations (eg. starting Windows, loading an application or game)?

It was interesting that the array on my first system reported the better burst speed whilst the array on my other system had a higher sustained transfer rate.

Thanks for replies

 

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Thanks rpstewart

So I suppose that really the most meaningful benchmark is the sustained transfer rate, and that this is the best way to measure how drives/arrays perform against each other in real world situations.