HARDWARE

Seagate External Hard Drive for Desktops

3/2/2013 9:24:46 AM

Though it’s not so fast when it comes to transfer large files, this 1TB hard disc brings an excellent value.

Seagate’s 1TB Barracuda is one of the most used hard discs that we often see in OEM PCs. There are proper reasons for this: it’s cheap and its specification is updated, with a SATA3 controller and a spinning speed of 7,200rpm.

It does not necessarily mean that specification shows great performance, and this cheap hard disc is not so fast. In large file write speed tests, it achieved a speed of 105.4MB/s and read large files at 113.1MB/s, at an average rate of 109.2MB/s. They belong to the type of the slowest speeds we've seen in the large file transfer tests.

Seagate Barracuda 1TB

Seagate Barracuda 1TB

Its performance with small file transfer is better, with the write speed of 52.9MB/s and read speed of 60.4MB/s, achieving an average of 56.6MB/s. It is really one of the fastest average speeds we've seen from a hard drive, and of course, the surprise lies in the price and low power consumption.

Seagate 1TB Barracuda offers only a one-year warranty, but it also costs approximately 10 cents per gigabyte, which is an excellent value for a 1TB hard drive. If you are looking for a cheap 1TB drive, this is a good choice, although if you can spend a little extra money, you can buy the excellent Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB at $123 incl. VAT, which has better values.

Seagate 1TB Barracuda

·         Price: $88

·         Website: www.cclonline.com

·         Ranking: 4/5

·         Capacity: 1TB

·         Interface: SATA3

·         Spinning speed: 7,200rpm

·         Cache: 32MB

·         Search time: 8.5ms

·         7Noise when idle: 29dB(A)

·         Warranty: one-year RTB

Seagate Barracuda 2TB - Cheap Hard Disc

It’s not so fast, but if you need a cheap hard disc, don’t look too far away from this!

The SATA3 Barracuda 2TB hard disc is a popular choice among PC manufacturers; we have seen it in many PCs taken to us for testing, so we are very pleased to have the opportunity to put it into the test.

Seagate Barracuda 2TB

Seagate Barracuda 2TB

We did not expect ultra-fast transfer speeds from cheap 7200rpm hard discs, and this 2TB Barracuda is one of the slowest SATA3 discs we've ever tested. It only has an average speed of 133MB/s in the large file transfer tests, with the write speed of 136.9MB/s and the read speed of 129.1MB/s. The performance of the small file transfer tests was worse: the write speed of 25.5MB/s and the read speed of 37.6MB/s only gave it an average speed of just 31.5MB/s.

However, although it’s slower, this can be partially compensated by the low price of the disc. It is one of the cheapest 2TB discs you can buy, with the price per gigabyte just a bit more than 5 cents. Slow access speeds mean that it will be best suited to serve as a storage drive, probably with a fast SSD system disc.

Although with a one-year warranty, it does not bring you at ease as what you may get from the more expensive hard discs, the Barracuda 2TB only lost the award to Western Digital’s excellent Caviar Green 2TB.

Seagate Barracuda 2TB

·         Price: $115

·         Website: www.ebuyer.com

·         Ranking: 4/5

·         Capacity: 1TB

·         Interface: SATA3

·         Spinning speed: 7,200rpm

·         Cache: 64MB

·         Search time: 8.5ms

·         Noise when idle: 26dB(A)

·         Warranty: one-year RTB

Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB - An Economical Way to Equip A System

Although it is designed for long-term use, this SATA2 hard disc is terribly slow compared to other cheaper SATA3 hard discs

Buying old SATA2 hard discs may be an economical way to equip a system. However, age is not always a synonym with cheapness, especially when dealing with discs such as Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB at enterprise level, which is designed to undergo years of continuous access and has a five-year warranty to support its confirmed reliability.

Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB

Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB

Its performance in our tests was better than that of most SATA2 discs. Its small file write speed is 49.7MB/s while its read speed is slightly slower than that of other discs, at 49.6MB/s. However, it has done a pretty bad job in the large file transfer test, only got an average of 95.1MB/s, with the write speed of 88.2MB/s and read speed of 101.9MB/s.

With one of the slowest quoted search time that we have recently seen – 9.5ms vs. the typical 8.5ms from most of the other discs - these slow speeds would not be any surprising.

We like a five-year warranty, but the ES.2’s price at 16 cents/gigabyte is very expensive by any standard. Combine this with the slow performance gained in the tests, we cannot recommend this disc, regardless of how reliable it is designed to be. If you are looking for a cheap 1TB disc and do not mind a shorter warranty period, then the Samsung Spinpoint F3 is a much better product to choose.

Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB

·         Price: $160

·         Website: www.scan.com 

·         Ranking: 2/5

·         Capacity: 1TB

·         Interface: SATA2

·         Spinning speed: 7,200rpm

·         Cache: 32MB

·         Search time: 9.5ms

·         Noise when idle: 27dB(A)

·         Warranty: five-year RTB

 

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