Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s (ST2000DL003) Hard Drive

Long gone are the days when one used to be content by downloading 3-4 songs. Even generic users require bulk space for storing backups, music, videos, games/software- list goes on. Low cost, lots of storage space and reliability is the name of the game for secondary storage.

Seagate sent me their "green" version of their 2TB Hard drive with SATA 6Gb/s interface.

Now I didn't have a SATA 6 Gb/s board with me at my disposal at first to test whether the "Green" edition drives some justice to the SATA 6 Gb/s implementation but Asus was kind enough to send me a board (Asus M4A88TD-Evo/USB 3) to review the board itself (which will be next) and I am using it to test the hard drive for putting up accurate evaluation.





Nothing much to add or emphasize, other than the basic specs of the drive itself:




Do note that Seagate did say that this drive comes with 3 years official warranty only.
Test Setup and Benchmark




The tests were done using SATA 6Gb/s cable that was bundled with the board.
Boot Load Time:




--------------------------------------

AS SSD Benchmark: Read and Write:




AS SSD Benchmark: Copy:




AS SSD Benchmark: Compression:




--------------------------------------

HD Tune Pro: Sequential Read/Write:




HD Tune Pro: File Benchmark:




HD Tune Pro: Random Write Access:




HD Tune Pro: Random Read Access:




Crystal Disk Benchmark: Read and Write performance:




--------------------------------------

ATTO Disk Benchmark:




--------------------------------------

Conclusion

Other than the boot time, the Seagate Barracuda Green (Formerly Barracuda LP) 2TB with the 6Gb/s interface does the job but it doesn't really use the true potential of SATA 6Gb/s. Its just one of those implementations that is made to "move on with the times". I am not saying SATA 3Gb/s days is a yesterday's thing, but since AMD and the New Intel H/P67 is offering SATA 3 native support, SATA 2 will get an early retirement.

India (MRP):Rs. 8,000/-

U.K.: £ 78.29

U.S. : ???

1.5TB version costs Rs. 6,500/- MRP. Despite a cut from 5 years to 3 years warranty, reliability and the lifespan of the product is something that buyers would appreciate more as its not feasible for many to take a backup of so much data, even for some power users.

As of now Hard drives like the 7200.12 rpm Seagate drive and Western Digital Black editions are a default choice for buyers today but this is something you could keep as an alternate choice. Nevertheless, its a good practice to keep a separate drive (SSD or a good enough HD? 250? 320? 500gigs? Your call) for the OS and the other drive as a secondary storage.
 
Just noticed that the Seagate website mentions these drives use the 4K Advanced format.

Since this is the first Seagate desktop drive (AFAIK) to transition to AF, I think that is the bigger change than the SATA 6Gbps standard ;)

Seagate claims their drives require no utilities even under XP. Any chance you could test that?

Edit: Sorry, forgot to mention... Good review! BTW why did you pull off the PCB? :P
 
One more additional plus point over the Barracuda LP : Ramp Loading for the heads instead of the older contact start stop.

Only problem is I don't think these have hit dealers yet out here. Has anyone spotted them?
 
^^ This HDD comes with the tag "Barracuda green" AND "barracuda LP" on the drive itself. This came in the usual sealed OEM pack. There's also a momentus XT version of 3.5 inch drive IIRC, but I need to find a way to bridge that gap between putting up reviews and availability/current retail price of the product.
 
Back
Top