Seagate 750GB Barracuda ES
Introduction
Several months ago, Seagate got the PC industry's attention with the introduction of the company's first 750GB consumer hard drive. As shown within our review of the drive, the Barracuda 7200.10 combined excellent performance with unparalleled capacity and a stellar 5-yr warranty. Fast forward to today and we find ourselves looking at Seagate's latest entry into the enterprise market with the arrival of the 750GB Barracuda ES.
As was the case with its brethren, the Barracuda ES owes its monstrous capacity to perpendicular recording technology. As illustrated in the image above, we see that the bits from the data stream are now oriented perpendicular to the plane of the drive platter instead of being parallel as with a conventional hard drive. As a result, the recording field is nearly doubled allowing for the significant increase in capacity versus traditional hard drives. Beyond the obvious immediate benefit of higher capacities, the use of Perpendicular Recording Technology provides hard drive vendors with another path with which to increase areal density. Without this technology, hard drive vendors would be hard pressed to cram more bits into the available real estate and would be hitting a brick wall in terms of capacity.
Unlike the standard desktop drive, enterprise-class drives are designed to withstand a significantly harsher and more demanding environments. Here, the highest level of performance is demanded along with the highest possible reliability. Referencing the image provided by Seagate above, we see the dramatic difference in failure rate versus IOPS (Input Output Per Second). The Seagate Barracuda ES represents the highest-capacity SATA enterprise hard drive available on the market today. Along with the exceptional capacity, the Barracuda ES also boasts the industry's highest reliability ratings.
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PHYSICAL SPECS Capacity: 750 GB Interface: SATA 3Gb/s Spindle Speed: 7200 RPM Cache Buffer: 16MB Number Of Platters: 4 (188 GB each) Number Of Heads: 8 Bytes Per Sector: 512 Height: 26.1 mm Length: 146.99 mm Width: 101.6 mm Weight: 720 g PERFORMANCE SPECS Seek Times Average Latency: 4.16 ms Seek Time: 11.0 ms Transfer Rate Transfer Rate, Max Ext: 300 MB/s Acoustics Idle Mode: 2.7 bels Seek Mode: 3.0 bels Power Requirements Seek: 12.6 watts Idle: 9.3 watts Standby: 0.8 watts |
FEATURES Perpendicular Recording Perpendicular Recording increases data density while decreasing moving parts for a more dependable drive. Serial ATA 3Gb/s (300MB/s) This product is configurable from SATA 1.5Gb/s to SATA 3Gb/s for easy interoperability. Adaptive Fly Height Adaptive Fly Height offers consistent read/write performance from the beginning to end of your computing workloads. Clean Sweep Clean Sweep automatically calibrates your drive each time you power up. Directed Offline Scan Directed Offline Scan runs diagnostics when storage access is not required. Seagate SoftSonic Seagate SoftSonic motor enables whisper-quiet operation. Enhanced G-Force Protection Enhanced G-Force Protection defends against handling damage. 5 Year Warranty |
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At first glance, it would be nearly impossible to distinguish the Barracuda ES drive from the Barracuda 7200.10 drive we've previously reviewed. Looking at the front and back of the drive, we find the same casing used with the only point of differentiation being the label itself. It should be noted that the drive we received was labeled as an "OEM" drive, though mechanically it would be the same identical drive to those which can be purchased through retail.
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Although the drive ships without a jumper and thus operates at full speed regardless, users should also note the SATA jumper setting. Here, the drive can be run either at SATA 150 or SATA 300 levels by placing a jumper on pins directly to the right of the SATA data cable. When the jumper is present, the drive is limited to 1.5GB/s whereas having no jumper allows for a full 3GB/s.
