SEAGATE BARRACUDA: The 80 'pounder' that won't bite.
Written: Feb 22 '05 (Updated Jun 24 '06)
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Pros: SATA, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), 8 MB Cache, low noise
Cons: Relatively expensive for a 7200 rpm drive, no traditional power plug
The Bottom Line: What looks mostly like standard fare is a top performer in the 7200 rpm class thanks to SATA and NCQ.
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| theuerkorn's Full Review: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80 GB ATA-100 Hard Drive |
Irony has it that I only got this drive since my S.M.A.R.T. motherboard insisted that my trusted Maxtor DiamondMax 9 (ATA133) is about to die, and I better replace the drive or else. This coincided with the replacement of the system drive with a Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA. Since I don't have deep enough pockets for another one of those, I went out for a cheaper version and ended up with the Barracuda SATA.
MAIN FEATURES
The '80GB Barracuda 7200.7' is kind of cryptic, and decoded that means 7,200 rpm spindle speed and '.7' stands for generation within that family. It exisits in both ATA and SATA version. The cache is 8 MByte large and the on-board controller provides SATA with NCQ support (Native command queuing). Beyond that it's a standard 80 GByte hard drive in a 3.5 inch package.
7200RPM: While SATA is relatively new, the 7,200 rpm are pretty much main stream across all ATA drives for desktop computers (PC). Hence, speed should be close to average for this class.
SATA: The interface that's poised to yield SCSI bandwidth at lower prices. Given the spindel speed, it's not expected to have any impact on the performance of this drive as the mechanical components often are the bottleneck (even with ATA100 and ATA133) in single or dual HDD setups. However, when thinking about forming a RAID, the SATA will certainly help since striping 2 drives already reaches well beyond 100 MByte bandwidth with current top models (to be found in the 10k and 15k rpm range).
CACHE: The 8 MByte are right on average as well and while it's an improvement over 2 MByte models, it's only important for data that can be prefetched and in order to do so predicted. If the file is random, it's not cached anyway and the same is true for larger files.
NCQ: With all the average looking data so far, the support for Native Data Queuing (NCQ) makes this the "World's first SATA desktop drive with NCQ" (according to Seagate). What this means can be read in detail on Seagate's website.
In a nutshell, NCQ allows to streamline commands better and fetch data in an optimized fashion relative to its position on the disk and not so much the order with which the drive receives them - a form of transport optimization. This way the reading head is not sent across the drive if data within the sequence is closer. Of course the actual order of the data is restored upon transmitting it back to the CPU.
http://www.seagate.com/products/interface/sata/native.html
INSTALLATION
Since my OS already resides on a different drive I only had to include this one as a data disk, which is much easier under WindowsXP and 2000 than moving a boot partition.
But first things first. Make sure to turn the computer completely off and ground yourself to the computer case to prevent electrostatic discharge from harming your components. (If you have cats, you may want to lock them up while upgrading since their curiosity and electrostatic potential are a dangerous combination.) SATA drives are hot-swapable which means you technically don't have to turn the CPU off, but for internal drives let's stick to the old procedure since there are still other components at risk.
Simply install the drive into a free 3.5" slot and connect the SATA data cable to the controller. The Barracuda also requires a SATA power plug. Unlike the Raptor, the Barracuda does not provide a traditional 4-pin power plug. While that prevents the potentially fatal event of connecting both SATA power and EZ power in the same drive, it also requires that you get an adapter if your power supply doesn't provide SATA power yet and you got the OEM drive (without any accessories).
That's about it. The BIOS should now recognize your drive and upon rebooting and the configuration of the drive depends on the tools you're using. If you don't already have PartitionMagic 8 or similar tools, you can download Seagate's DiscWizard 2003 from www.seagate.com/support/software/ to configure the disk. Choose the DOS version if you don't have an OS installed already and pick the Windows version for an existing installation.
Note: In case this is going to be your boot drive, be aware that WindowsXP and 2000 require a special disk structure to be able to boot from it. Be advised to use the Windows installation disk to create that partition. While I did not test 'DiscWizard's' ability to transfer a functioning system partition, 'MaxBlast 3' and 'Data LifeGuard' were not up to the task.
PERFORMANCE
The moment of truth is here. Can a 7,200 rpm drive with NCQ compete with a 10,000 rpm drive without? How much does NCQ help anyway? To find out I benchmarked the "Seagate Barracuda 80GB 7200.7" against the "Western Digital Raptor SATA" (SATA150, 8MB cache).
Sandra2005: Barracuda vs. Raptor
Buffered Read [MB/s] = 89 / 121
Sequential Read [MB/s] = 57 / 68
Random Read [MB/s] = 41 / 38
Buffered Write [MB/s] = 100 / 82
Sequential Write [MB/s] = 57 / 68
Random Write [MB/s] = 39 / 52
Avg Access Time [ms] = 7 / 12
Drive Index [MB/s] = 51 / 58
Interpretation: Despite Seagate's best intentions, the lead still belongs to the brute force of the 10,000 rpm Raptor but in the random read the NCQ of the Barracuda seems to help gaining the lead here. However, NCQ doesn't do much for buffered write, and the lag of the Raptor doesn't really seem to make sense. Further, the average access time of 12 ms appears a little high for the Raptor (rated at 4.5 ms). However, the Raptor clearly wins this contest but not as much as the 3x price tag may suggest.
Noise: With the elastomeric mounting in my case, the Barracuda stays amazingly quiet. During testing almost a little bit too much since in some cases I had to touch the drive to figure out which one is working. Kudos to Seagate as this may be one of the side effects of NCQ.
Temperature: Given the optimized airflow due to the 'eliminated' ATA cable and the close proximity of the front fan in my case, the Barracuda kept with 85F (30C) slightly above room temperature. Amazing as this may seem, the Raptor and the Maxtor were right in the same ballpark. Outside the air stream it was a slightly different picture with the Raptor getting about 5 - 10 F warmer than the other two.
SUMMARY
While the Barracuda doesn't match the Raptor's bite, it sure wins the power battle relative to cost. Not the fastest SATA drive available, but NCQ and ultra quiet operation make it a serious solution in the traditional 7,200 rpm market.
Under normal use one might be hard-pressed to notice a significant difference to other SATA drives, but noise and theoretical bandwidth are strong arguments for the Barracuda along with the price of $60 or $0.75/MByte. Sure the SATA pond isn't very big yet, but drives like the Raptor and the Barracuda make it easy to jump right into it. Don't worry, neither will bite you. ;-)
SYSTEM SPECS
Case: Termaltake Tsunami VA3400SNA
Monitor: Viewsonic VP201s
Motherboard: ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR400 (C2), 1 GByte
Hard drive: Western Digital Raptor 74G SATA 10k
Operating System: WindowsXP Home SP2
Video Driver: Catalyst 5.2 (Radeon driver 8.10)
Chipset Driver: nVidia nForce v6.39
Graphics card: MSI RX800Pro-TD256E
© 2005, theuerkorn
Recommended:
Yes
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