Seagate's 1TB Drives Get Upbeat Reviews

Since their release in June 2007, Seagate's 11th generation of Barracuda drives have recieved a lot of positive reviews and test results. Below you will find a selection of some of the most prominent reviews.

Bit-Tech.net

"Seagate's new heavyweight is actually part of the latest eleventh generation of high-capacity Barracuda drives, dubbed 7200.11. The group contains 500GB, 750GB and 1TB models, but it doesn't just stop at the size increase. A lot of technological improvements have gone into the drives, many of which will make it a top choice for those in need of some good storage.

The new drive does all of its storage on four platters instead of Hitachi's five platters. This may sound like no big deal, but is actually a very significant change. Less moving parts means less wear and tear on the drive, and thus a much better MTBF (mean time between failures). All of this is backed by a massive 32MB cache on a 7200RPM spindle."

Computerworld

"You're probably thinking that by the time a product hits its 11th generation, it might be starting to wear a little thin. But if you have that notion about Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 series of hard drives, you'll need to revamp your preconceptions. Now into its 11th generation, the Barracuda has taken perpendicular storage technology to new heights with a 1TB version. Officially dubbed the ST31000340AS, Seagate's latest data monster uses a Serial ATA NCQ interface and carries a rather sizable 32MB of cache.

Tested with Simpli Software's HDTach, the Barracuda posted an 85.5MB/sec. average read speed. Compare that with the 57MB/sec. recorded from a 250GB Seagate hard drive (ST3250824AS 3.AA) also installed in the system. That's a huge difference for a hard drive. Random-access time was also lower for the 1TB Barracuda at 12.9ms, vs. 15.7ms for the 250GB drive."

BootDaily.com

"Seagate continues to break new ground in the enterprise and business markets with its latest Barracuda ES.2 drives which weigh in at up to 1-Terabyte of capacity. While Hitachi was first this year with a 1TB drive to the desktop and retail side of things, Seagate’s first 1TB model has some BIOS tweaks for the business segment...

The performance of this drive has set a new standard in the BootDaily labs for the highest-performing 7200rpm drive ever. It easily eclipses the Hitachi unit and under a RAID scenario takes-no-prisoner – the closest competitor is crushed.

Our tests show that building a 1TB drive can be done through different avenues – one slaps in enough platters to make it happen and the other increases the density per platter instead. The results of the latter – as seen by the Seagate drive – are nothing short of staggering.

Seagate may be a Johnny-come-late to the party but have shown how a little patience and engineering can pay off in huge performance dividends. The Barracuda ES.2 – bottom line – is the fastest 1-Terabyte drive out right now and will surely not disappoint business owners or power users who demand the utmost in storage. It has the reputation and warranty of Seagate (5 years) with performance in spades to back it up."

Order Seagate's 1TB drives on ASBIS' B2B Marketplace