Seagate Barracuda 7200.11

With new teams entering the terabyte storage market, it was only a matter of time before one smacked down the great Hitachi 7K1000 1TB drive. That distinction goes to Seagate’s 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 drive.

The Barracuda and Western Digital’s Caviar GP are virtually identical in terms of features: same 32MB cache, same 7,200rpm rotation speed, same 512 bytes per sector. The Barracuda and Caviar GP drives also use four platters (250GB apiece) to hit their 1TB capacities, unlike Hitachi’s 7K1000, which uses five platters. This difference in areal density proves to be a fatal flaw for Hitachi’s drive, and the Caviar GP’s speeds are constrained by its focus on energy savings.  

The result? Seagate’s 7200.11 terabyte drive is the fastest we’ve yet tested in the Lab, hands down. It doesn’t come with any additional features—no encryption, no power-savings, no backup—just speed. Although we’d welcome the others, speed is our primary concern.

Unconstrained by power-saving techniques, Seagate’s Barracuda delivers speed, speed, and more speed—but no extra features!

Seagate Barracude 7200.11
www.seagate.com

Frijoles

You’re staring at the fastest terabyte drive on the market.

Ay Caramba

The Barracuda’s burst speeds aren’t quite on par with Western Digital’s. That’s a minor detail, but a detail nonetheless.