Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Bare Drive - ST32000641AS

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Price: $144.00    

Product Feature

• Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging
• SATA 6gb/s interface enables the use of the industrys newest and fastest hadr drive controllers while providing backward compatibility
• 7200RPM performance platform complements high capacity, delivering a power combination of extreme storage and top-end desktop performance
• Massive 2TB drive capacity provides plenty of room for downloading todays space-hungry PC games and movies
• 64 MB cache optimizes burst performance and reduces data throughput bottlenecks

Product Description

Barracuda Xt 7200.12 3.5Inch 2000Gb 7200Rpm 64Cch Sata

Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Bare Drive - ST32000641AS Review

This is an OEM product so expect that it does not come with some other pieces that are required to install. You will need a SATA data cable and if your power supply doesn't have any, a SATA power cable. The drive comes in a plastic clamshell case that just snaps shut. A concern here was a lack of a anti-static bag and padding for the drive but it seemed to have arrived in fine condition. It was definitely easy to open. No scissors needed and not blood drawn from sharp plastic unlike a more recent experience trying to open a toy for my daughter. Kudos to Amazon on their packaging even if it made me a little nervous.

This 2TB Seagate drive uses the latest SATA 6Gb/s technology (also known as SATA III) and is intended for use with the latest SATA 6Gb/s controllers. SATA 6Gb/s technology is a fairly recent thing so right now only the top-end motherboards have this technology and they are rather expensive. New SATA 6Gb/s PCI-e cards are also available and don't seem to have the premium price tag of the latest motherboards. However, thanks to the SATA standards, these aren't necessary to use a SATA 6Gb/s drive. These drives are backwards-compatible with SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 1.5Gb/s depending on the BIOS of the SATA controller. I was not able to test this drive with a SATA 6Gb/s controller because I do not own one but I was able to test it with both SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 1.5Gb/s controllers.

In all cases, the drive was very quiet and quick though not noticeably quicker than any other hard drive for the applications I use. Though, again, the testing was limited to SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 1.5Gb/s controllers and was also done using applications that don't necessarily benefit from the extra speed such as watching videos and streaming data. Importantly, it was easy to install and was readily recognized by both Windows 7 and Windows Home Server, the former having a SATA 3Gb/s controller and the latter a SATA 1.5Gb/s controller. In one setup which I will detail in a bit the drive ran a bit too warm for my liking compared to the other drive in the system. At all times the drive was whisper quiet, no clicking of drive heads audible even during a long copy process.

The first PC I tried this drive in was my home theater PC. This PC is housed in a case about the size of an audio-video receiver and sits inside my entertainment center. To install, I just needed a SATA data cable because my power supply had plenty of SATA power plugs left open and the screws that had come with the computer case. As with all SATA drives, it installed easily, Windows 7 recognized it right away and I was able to create a partition and quick format the drive via the Disk Manager interface. The drive had indeed arrived safe and sound despite the minimal packaging. SATA is such a godsend after the old days of setting jumpers, setting drive types in the BIOS, etc. The drive formatted to 1.8TB. No drive ever formats to the advertised capacity so this was no surprise. The OS needs room for the file allocation tables. I used 64K allocation blocks since I was testing this drive out with large video files. I then copied 600GB of video data to the drive which took a few hours over a gigabit network. There were no glitches in the copying and the data written to the drive played just fine in Windows Media Center as expected. I then shutdown the machine and opened up the PC to see how warm the drive was getting. It was definitely warmer to the touch than I would have liked. I am not sure if that's the drive itself or the confined space of the home theater PC. I did notice that the system drive however was not as warm. I think if I were to use this drive in a home theater PC or any confined space I would have concerns about the heat and be sure to have some additional cooling around the hard drive cages. There is currently one 92mm fan pushing air over the harddrives but I would add one more. Keeping components cool is a key to their longevity.

The second PC I tried this drive in was my home server PC. For this install, I needed a power cable and a data cable. I used a combined data/power cable that cost less than $10. My home server is an old Dell Optiplex tower repurposed as a Windows Home Server. Being an older machine, it only has a SATA 1.5Gb/s controller on-board along with an add-in SATA PCI card also running at 1.5Gb/s. Installation was the same experience as with the home theater PC. The drive came right up in the server console, recognized by the older controller hardware without issue and by Windows Home Server without issue. The drive was added to the drive pool as a 1.8TB drive. This is probably not the kind of drive I would use in a home server but I wanted to see how it played with the older controller. There were no issues at all and it was fully backwards-compatible with the older technology. This drive is definitely overkill for a simple home server but I am sure it would be great in an enterprise-level server where speed is king with its huge 64MB cache and SATA 6Gb/s support as long as it was hitched to a drive and network controller that would not bottleneck the drive.

I do wish I had the kind of hardware that could have put this drive through its paces to see how it compares to the other drives I have. If I can get my hands on some I will do more testing and update this review. I think this kind of technology is overkill for the everyday home user especially at this price point. This is especially true in a home server that's going to be running 24/7 where something in a "green" drive is more suitable. This drive is going to be bottlenecked by the on-board controller in a desktop-class motherboard and a home network so a faster drive isn't necessary. The advertised speeds are beyond what my gigabit network can handle with my home-class router and switch. As for its use in a media front-end it's likely overkill there too and I am not sure how it peforms temperature-wise in such an enclosed environment. I would worry about longevity with what seemed to be a hotter running drive. This is another place where a cooler running albeit slower green drive would suffice at a much lower price point. HD video streaming at 480Mb/s is going to be no match for any class modern drive.

I don't think however, I am the target market for this drive. Given the price point, large cache and advertised speed this drive would be more suited for someone who has the hardware and software that can take advantage of this drive. It's definitely an high-performance piece of technology positioned for the higher-end or enthusiast who needs to speed and features it offers. Everyday users such as myself would find a better value in a slower, lower power, less expensive drive. Given my experience so far with the drive, I would say that if I was looking for the fastest and the quietest this is the one I would pick. So far it's been a gem. Now the test will be longevity in the home server. How will it hold up compared to the WD Caviar Green drives that are running alongside it. These drives have been running smoothly, one for over a year, another about half a year and a third, a 1.5TB drive that cost 1/3 the price, about 4 months. This will be the most important test of all. As time goes on I will come back and report on how the drive is holding up. It's one thing to write a review on a drive after a week but how reliable will it be after 6 months, a year, etc. only time will tell. Stability and longevity (aka reliability) are after all the most important features of any data storage technology.

Update (27-May-2011)
This HDD is still going strong in my home server running Windows Home Server v1.

Update (05-Dec-2011)
Another six months or so gone by and the drive is still running well. It's now in my WHS2011 server.

Using SpeedFan to analyze my SMART status it gives the following scores:

The overall fitness for this drive is 89%.
The overall performance for this drive is 89%.

All SMART attribute values are still in the green except the readings attributable to the age of the drive and the "raw read error rate" which bears watching but is nothing to be concerned about at this point.

Update (14-Aug-2013)
This HDD is still going strong in my home server. All SMART attribute values are still in the green except the power on which is way beyond the mean. Until last week it was one of my on-line data drives but I've replaced my 2TB with 3TB so this will now be used as an off-line backup drive. I am very impressed with the longevity of this drive -- 3 1/2 years!

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