I think most people don’t think much about hard drives
really; at least the average person doesn’t anyway. Most average people have a
pre-built box computer and they just accept what’s in it and that’s that.
People like me though build our own computers and we seek out the best
performing hard drive we can find as we want the fastest and the best. Seagate
is known for their Barracuda line of drives, they offer decent performance and
that’s what I’ve got for review today.
Product Name: Seagate
Barracuda ST31000528AS 7200.12 SATA 3Gb/s 1TB Hard Drive
Author: Kristofer
Brozio
Sponsor: Seagate
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Barracuda
7200.12 SATA 3Gb/s 1TB Hard Drive
Model: ST31000528AS
The Seagate
Barracuda 7200.12 hard drive combines proven technology and components with
industry-leading manufacturing expertise to deliver up to 1 TB of sustainable
desktop storage with 32-MB cache.
By combining
sustainable Seagate technology and components with industry-leading volume
manufacturing, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 drive delivers up to 1 TB of
green, low-power yet high-performance, desktop storage.
Key Features and
Benefits:
Sustainable
technology for a green world:
-Typically 70
percent or more of the materials used to build the drive is recycled.
-Complies with the
RoHS directive
12th generation of
the world’s most popular desktop hard drive
Ships with the most
reliable and proven perpendicular magnetic recording technology
Delivers high
performance:
-160-MB/s maximum
sustained data rate
-Up to 3 Gb/s
instantaneous burst
-32-MB cache on
1-TB and 750-GB drives, 16-MB cache on 500-GB drives, 8-MB cache on 320, 250-
and 160-GB drives
Specifications:
Model Number:
ST31000528AS
Interface: SATA
3Gb/s
Cache: 32MB
Capacity: 1TB
Areal density
(avg): 329Gb/in2
Guaranteed Sectors:
1,953,525,168
PHYSICAL :
Height: 26.1mm
(1.028 in)
Width: 101.6mm
(4.000 in)
Length: 146.99mm
(5.787 in)
Weight (typical):
622g (1.371 lb)
PERFORMANCE :
Spin Speed (RPM):
7200 RPM
Average latency:
4.16ms
Random read seek
time: <8.5ms
Random write seek
time: <9.5ms
Price:
$83.99 (from Amazon at time of review)
A Better Look at Things
:
So it’s a hard drive from Seagate and here it is:
Installation, Testing and Comparison
I’m comparing the 7200.12 to a couple other drives I’ve got installed in
my system. Here’s the list of all three including the Seagate:
Western
Digital Caviar Green WD5000AACS 500GB 5400 RPM 16 MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s
Hard Drive
SAMSUNG
Spinpoint F4 HD322GJ/U 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Seagate
Barracuda ST31000528AS 7200.12 SATA 3Gb/s 1TB Hard Drive
This is just a starting point as I’ve got a few more drives coming up
for review, so as I get them posted they’ll be added to the comparisons. I
tossed the 5400rpm drive in there just as a comparison.
First up is Atto:
The Seagate topped out at 133 read and 133 write, while the Samsung hit
138 for read and 133 for write. The Western Digital did as expected for a
5400rpm drive.
The next test is CrystalDisk Mark:
Here we see the Seagate does better than the Samsung in the read test,
and just a hair slower in the write test.
The final test I ran is from SiSoft Sandra, the Physical Disks
Benchmark:
Benchmark hard
disks (i.e. the disk itself, not the file system). Shows how your physical
disks connected to the storage adapters or hosts compare to other disks in a
typical computer.
As the test
measures raw performance it is independent on the file system the disk uses and
any volumes mounted off the disk.
Drive Score: is a
composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the
highest read or write speed across the whole disk. Thus the higher the better.
Access Time: is the
average time to read a random sector on the disk, analogous to latency response
time. Thus the lower the better.
Here we see the Samsung F4 performs a bit better than the Seagate
Barracuda, still not bad though.
I just posted the review of the Hornettek Viper and I used this drive in
it. One of the things I mentioned was the fact that it gets warm; these drives
do get fairly warm under load.
Summary and Comments
It always seems we need more space and faster drives to keep up with
everything out there. High definition is in; standard definition is pretty much
out. HD means larger files, a lot larger files actually so we need bigger
drives to store those files. The Seagate Barracuda is fast and large in
capacity, it fits the bill nicely for those that need a lot of space and decent
performance.
DragonSteelMods gives the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 a 4.5 out of 5
score.
Pros:
+Fast drive
+Large capacity
+Relatively low price for the capacity
Cons:
-Can get fairly warm
review# 694
Disclosure: This product was given to DragonSteelMods for review
by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment
for the review; we do not, never have, and never will, accept payment from
companies to review their products.
To learn more about our review policy, testing methods and ratings
please see this page.