Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 1.5Tb Hard Drive - ST31500341AS product reviews

At around 9 cents per gigabyte, this is certainly a very cost-effective option for bulk storage. For running in a NAS it is ideal, or in a fixed backup server it's incredible value. Our research indicates that of the 1tb+ 7200rpm drives from the major brands, it beats them all in the cost-per-gig stakes. The only ones cheaper are 5400rpm and 5900rpm drives, and that's more likely to be 'stock clearance' prices more than anything else.

With four 375gb platters - the incredible result of the new "Perpendicular Recording Technology" - the drive is a tad on the heavy side at 660 grams, but no more so than any other 4-platter drive. However, the biggest flaw I found of this drive is the heat it generates. When we initially tested it in a the regular desktop mini tower case, we found that Windows (XP SP2) kept locking up and crashing. In the end, we had to jury-rig a cooling fan across two 5.25" bays in the front panel to cool it directly, thus keeping it within safe operating temperature range.

Transfer speeds were fair enough, with a peak speed of 43.06mb/sec over a 100mbit ethernet network to a Linux-based NAS. When connected directly to a PC, we got some interesting results though...

Moving a single 1.26gb movie file, we clocked 59.60mb/sec when writing to the drive, and 63.81mb/sec reading back off it. When we used our 1.3gb 'assorted small files' test bundle, we clocked 49.76mb/sec when writing to the drive, and 60.76mb/sec reading back off it. None of these results were spectacular really, but for a home system needing a pile of storage for archiving, or as working space for video editing, these drives would certainly prove their value, especially at the current prices.

Power consumption was fairly eco-friendly, though not as low as some of the dedicated eco-wise drives. We clocked the drive using an average of 10.91W during regular operations, 8.27W idle and 0.85W during standby or sleep mode. Note: Figures are averages of 20 values taken at 3 minute intervals.) In particular, the 'low power sleep' mode was very efficient when compared to some older Seagate drives we have been running.

Given the state of technology, and the ever-growing need for storage space (Does anyone else remember when an entire graphical O/S could fit on a 512kb EPROM?!) a drive such as this is almost an essential requirement for any desktop PC. If you enjoy high-end gaming, multimedia authoring, or digital photography, then two of these drives - and some extra cooling fans - would be a very smart move indeed.

Overall, an excellent drive, and a smart investment... if you can get your hands on them before they go 'end of line' and replaced with some form of hybrid drive.