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1 2 3 NextSeagate 7200.11: 1.5TB HDD
Feb 1, 2009 by Lawrence Lee
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Product
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Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS
1.5TB, 7200 RPM Desktop Hard Drive
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Sample Supplier
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Market Price
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US$130 |
Seagate's Barracuda 1TB 7200.11
was a return to respectability for Seagate in the eyes of SPCR. After years
of tinkering with various revisions, the 11th iteration of their 7200 line finally
put Seagate back into contention. While not the quiestest drive, it wasn't half-bad
— certainly not for a 1TB drive. Today we're looking at their 1.5TB drive,
an even bigger challenge when it comes to noise. It has sat alone for several
months as the largest desktop drive, only recently having been eclipsed by Western
Digital's 2TB Green Power model. To keep noise down and performance up, Seagate
has cranked up the platter size to a whopping 375GB.
The 1.5TB version of the 7200.11 has the same casing as the 1TB model.
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| FEATURE & BRIEF |
COMMENT |
| * Provides the industry’s highest
capacity — up to 1.5 TB |
Seagate was first to the market at the
1.5TB capacity point; however, Western Digital now has a 2TB variant of
their Green Power line. |
| * Ships with the industry's most reliable
and proven perpendicular magnetic recording technology |
PMR is not intrinsically more reliable
than older technologies and Seagate's reliability has taken a bit of a tumble
of late — a firmware problem
has resulted in many 7200.11 drives (mainly 1TB units) suddenly turning
into paper-weights. |
* Delivers high performance
o 120 MB/s sustained data rate
o 32-MB cache buffer |
Impressive ... but misleading —
a nice number, but not necessarily a good indicator of real-world performance.
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* Environmentally friendly
o Idles at only 8.0 watts, enabling customers to build low-power systems
o Meets strict RoHS environmental requirements |
It may sound like very little, but 8
watts is more or less average for desktop hard drives. Also, all modern
drives are RoHS compliant — that isn't anything special. |
| * Leverages best combination of technology
(areal density, PMR) and proven components for volume availability |
Marketing-speak. |
Specifications: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11
ST31000340AS (1TB)
vs. ST31500341AS (1.5TB)
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| Capacity |
1 TB
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1.5 TB
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| Cache |
32 MB
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32 MB |
| Disks / Heads |
4 / 8
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4 / 8 |
| Interface |
SATA 3Gb/s |
SATA 3Gb/s |
| Spindle Rotation Speed |
7,200 RPM
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7,200 RPM |
| Sustained Data Rate OD |
105 MB/s |
120 MB/s |
| Average Latency |
4.16 ms
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4.16 ms |
| Weight |
0.64 kg
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0.72 kg |
| Power Requirements: Idle / Seek
(avg.) |
8.0 / 11.6 W
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8.0 / ? W |
| Acoustics: Idle / Seek |
2.7 / 2.9 bels
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2.8 / 3.2 bels |
A run-down of the published specification tables for the 1.5 TB Barracuda versus
the earlier 1 TB version shows that the newer drive is claimed to have a higher
sustained transfer rate and higher noise levels. Idle power consumption is the
same, but Seagate does not state how much energy is required during seek. The
new model also sports much larger platters — a massive 375GB per disk.
That's about 12% more than the density necessary to produce a 3-platter 1TB
drive and 50% increase compared to Seagate's own 1TB 7200.11 drive.
| Help support this site, buy the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB Hard Drive from one of our affiliate retailers! |
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