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FEATURES & SPECIFICATIONS
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.9 ST3500641AS (quoted
from Seagate's web
site)
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| FEATURE & BRIEF |
COMMENT |
|
SATA 3Gb/s with NCQ: Higher through-put and supports Intel Hyper-Threading
for increased performance of SATA servers and workstations supporting
intensive applications. NCQ also increases reliability in heavy workloads
significantly reducing the drive's mechanical wear.
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Read it closely: These features are most useful for server and workstation
applications.
|
|
16 MB Cache: Provides the highest performance with increased data
bursting through the interface
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16 MB is
quite large; some of the lower capacity models don't have this much. |
| 2.8 bels
idle, 3.2 bels seek acoustics: Super-quiet drive is almost inaudible.
Difference between idle and seek can hardly be detected by human ear, making
drive operation almost silent. |
How loud
is 2.8 bels? Keep reading and we'll tell you... |
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3-D Defense System: Industry's most comprehensive drive and data
protection system
|
The three
D's are "disc", "data", and "diagnostic".
I was unable to find out any more than this, but the use of this marketing
term goes back to 1999... |
| 7,200 RPM:
Higher performance and data throughput |
Well... higher
performance than very old drives. 7,200 had been standard for a while now... |
|
RoHS Compliant: Meets or exceeds all current and proposed environmental
standards and legislation
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Among other
things, this means the manufacturing process is lead-free. We're happy to
see Seagate being environmentally responsible. |
In addition to having impressively high capacity, the Barracuda 7200.9 is compatible with the latest official
SATA specification, SATA 2.5. This specification brings together all of the
various optional extensions to SATA 1.0, such as native command
queuing (NCQ), 3.0 Gbps interface speed, and a redesigned SATA plug designed
to be more secure than the original.
Strictly speaking, none of these features are new, but they are rapidly becoming
common throughout the hard drive market. For the desktop user, the most useful
feature is probably the redesigned plug, as most of the other features are targetted
at the server and enterprise markets.
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What happened to SATA II?
Manufacturers have been selling "SATA II" drives for some time
now, but SATA-IO, the organization that defines the SATA standard has
never released a "SATA II" standard. Thanks to enthusiastic
marketing, SATA II has ended up being used to denote drives that include
one or more of the optional extensions to the original SATA 1.0 specification,
but it doesn't correspond to any fixed set of features. SATA-IO has recently
updated the specification to SATA 2.5, which includes all
of the optional extensions. More
information here.
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The logic board is quite small, and cannot be powered by a Molex connector.
For desktop use, the high capacity and large cache will probably have more
effect on performance than the extra features provided by SATA 2.5. From a noise
perspective, the high capacity has a downside though: Higher capacity means
more platters, which in turn means more noise.
One feature that is missing is Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM), which lets
users sacrifice some seek latency for quieter seeks. Seagate is the only major
manufacturer that does not support this feature, which is ironic, as the company probably pioneered it. According to our contact at
Seagate, none of the current Seagate drives support AAM in any way, shape or form. All of their drives are set for maximum performance. This is true for all drives produced after the 7200.7 series, most of which had AAM: PATA models locked at lowest noise and SATA models locked at highest performance.
SPECIFICATIONS
The specifications below are specific to the model that we examined. Capacity,
cache size, platter number, interface, and even performance vary from model
to model even within a single product line. Acoustics and power dissipation
also vary depending on the number of platters in the drive; smaller capacity
drives tend to have fewer platters, and tend to produce less noise and use less
power.
The numbers below are compiled from two sources: A PDF
datasheet, and an HTML
web page. Not all of the specifications were listed on both pages, and
some of the specifications conflicted. Where conflicts occurred, the PDF source
was preferred. Also, both sources listed the interface type as SATA 3.0 Gbps
w/ NCQ, but according to this
press release from Seagate, all of the Barracuda 7200.9 models comply with
SATA 2.5.
| HDD Model |
|
| Capacity |
500 GB
|
| Cache |
16 MB
|
| Platters |
4
|
| Heads |
8
|
| Spindle Speed |
7,200 RPM
|
| Interface |
SATA 2.5 (3.0 Gbps w/ NCQ)
|
| Latency |
4.16 ms
|
| Average Seek |
11 ms
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| Weight |
0.69 kg
|
| Operating Temperature |
0 - 60°C
|
| Power Dissipation: Idle / Seek |
7.4 / 12.6W
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| Acoustics: Idle / Seek |
2.8 / 3.2 Bels
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| Help support this site, buy the Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB HDD from one of our affiliate retailers! |
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