Seagate presents the eleventh generation of its Barracuda series. To reach 1.5 Terabyte of raw capacity Seagate uses four 375 GByte platters. Furthermore the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB has a sustained data rate of up to 120 MByte/s.
Specifications
| Model | Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB ST31500340AS |
| Capacity | 1.5 TByte, 32 MByte Cache |
| Technology | 4 platters, perpendicular recording |
| Throughput | bis zu 120 MB/s reading/writing |
| Accesstime (read) | 8.5 ms |
| Life expectance | 750'000 hours (MTBF) |
| Powerconsumption | Seek: 11.6 W Operating: 12 W Idle: 8 W |
| Acoustics | Seek: 29 dB Idle: 27 dB |
| Warranty | 5 Years |
On the following pages we will show you if the Barracuda 7200.11 does what Seagate proclaims.
Discuss this article in the forum [pagebreak] Impressions
Discuss this article in the forum [pagebreak] How do we test?
Testenvironment
We recommend that readers who aren't interested in test procedures jump over this and the following page and head directly to the test results.
Test results
| Model | Seagate Barracuda 720011 ST31500340AS | 1.5 TByte |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte X38-DQ6 | |
| Chipset | Intel X38 | 1066 MHz |
| CPU | Intel Xeon 3060 | 2.4 GHz |
| Memory | Corsair Dominator 9136 DDR2 | 2 GByte |
| Graphics card | Gigabyte GeForce 7200 | |
| Storage (system) | Maxtor | 160 GByte |
| Operating systems | Ubuntu 8.04.1 Hardy Microsoft Windows XP | Kernel 2.6.24-19-server SP3 |
| Filesystem | XFS | |
| Database-Management-System | PostgreSQL | Version 8.3.3 |
We think everybody reading this article can imagine the following scenario: You just bought a hard drive which according the specs sheet should transfer 120 MByte/s reading and writing. In the reviews you read about astonishing 110 MByte/s but after you put the drive into you system it feels much slower. The whole story gets even worse when you start a benchmark which does randomread/write of 4 KByte blocks. There you only get two to three MBytes/s.
Because of this we don't want to publish screenshots of standard programs like HD-Tach, HD-Tune, ... we want our tests to be
- reproducible,
- accurate
- meaningful and
- varied
We test with activated caches and NCQ (Native Command Queueing) because they're also activated under daily use. But the data size tested is always at least twice the amount of the memory.
We noticed that the measuring error is constantly within ±2%. Therefore we mention it only here.
Databases fundamentally depend on the storage system. If you choose your storage system correctly you can boost the performance of your database on a conventional hard drive significantly. Therefore we use PostgreSQL version 8.3.3 with the script pgbench.
Additionally we evaluate the S.M.A.R.T. data to assess if there are already errors.
The following table give you a brief overview to which points we turn our centre of attention.
| Test | Observations |
| Sequential Read/Write Tests |
|
| Random Read/Write Tests |
|
| Database tests |
|
Linux, XFS, why?
There are different reasons why we take a operating system based on a Linux Kernel instead of a fresh Windows Vista/XP installation with all Service Packs.
- The filesystem XFS offers you a flexibility you can't get from NTFS.
- The testprogram iozone runs natively under linux.
- The test partly aims to server applications.
- Iozone gives you data on a statistical basis (error, deviation, etc.)
The filesystem is going to be built as follows:
mkfs.xfs -d sunit=128 -d swidth=4096 -l size=128m -f /dev/sdbWe mounted with the following options:
mount -o rw,noatime,logbufs=8 /dev/sdb /mnt/sea
Why do we test different block sizes?
It is important to reproduce scenarios of daily usage. Certain parameters need to be variable during the test to make a statement about the product. In our test the parameters are the different block sizes. It defines the size in KBytes which is written/read on the drive during a transaction.
With this method one can test the reading and writing of either small and big files. In a normal personal computer environment you usually don't find many files smaller than 16 KByte. The relative amount of small files is much bigger on a mail or database server. Therefore tests with small block sizes are of interest for database-based applications.
In bigger RAID arrays the hard disk cache is usually disabled and the RAID-Controller takes over the job of caching. Exactly in such setups hard drives need to be very fast when reading or writing small amounts of data. Sequential throughput isn't interesting in this case.
Discuss this article in the forum [pagebreak]
Test results iozone KByte/s
The test first builds a file 4 GByte big (sequential, initial write) and afterwards there will be read from this file (sequential, read). One step later there will be the same on a random basis to see the influence of the access time (random reads/writes). You can compare 4 KByte block size with a text file with only few letters in it. MP3s and movie files conist of 256 KByte and even bigger blocks. If one for example copies 10'000 text files with a size of 25 MByte it takes much longer than copying a 25 MByte movie file. This is becauseauf of the access time which has a big influence with small files. Big files on the other hand aren't affected by the block size.
iozone KByte/s, sequential write |
|
| 4 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 109'332 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 88'861 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 86'454 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 75'471 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 74'730 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 47'840 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 44'720 |
| 16 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 94'762 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 93'856 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 92'142 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 87'147 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 76'178 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 50'381 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 45'463 |
| 32 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 97'445 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 95'094 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 94'253 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 94'126 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 77'325 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 66'401 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 44'700 |
| 64 KByte | |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 104'642 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 101'576 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 99'369 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 99'182 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 76'484 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 68'319 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 41'458 |
| 128 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 104'240 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 99'571 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 98'362 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 84'472 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 77'204 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 78'664 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 43'977 |
| 256 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 106'809 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 103'175 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 98'939 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 89'999 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 87'703 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 77'257 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 49'007 |
iozone KByte/s, sequential read |
|
| 4 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 240'626 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 104'825 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 101'599 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 88'078 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 61'252 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 20'062 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 39'566 |
| 16 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 240'505 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 107'309 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 105'362 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 94'521 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 69'315 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 21'810 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 43'703 |
| 32 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 239'662 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 107'516 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 105'407 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 99'169 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 74'521 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 32'627 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 37'019 |
| 64 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 239'235 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 107'795 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 107'575 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 105'590 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 81'718 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 39'331 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 39'904 |
| 128 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 242'603 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 106'465 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 104'790 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 103'427 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 36'893 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 53'627 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 40'527 |
| 256 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 240'404 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 107'806 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 107'641 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 103'886 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 71'301 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 49'105 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 43'344 |
iozone KByte/s, random write |
|
| 4 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 48'194 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 4'521 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 3'005 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 1'964 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 1'438 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 1'390 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 1'304 |
| 16 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 75'127 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 7'573 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 7'356 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 6'013 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 5'640 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 4'898 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 4'449 |
| 32 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 79'788 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 13'012 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 12'493 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 11'125 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 9'285 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 8'853 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 8'529 |
| 64 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 81'474 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 22'158 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 20'132 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 19'393 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 16'212 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 14'959 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 12'756 |
| 128 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 79'147 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 33'757 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 31'886 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 27'462 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 24'931 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 24'324 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 17'808 |
| 256 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 80'460 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte | 48'845 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 47'147 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte | 40'882 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte | 38'288 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 35'806 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 23'862 |
iozone KByte/s, random read |
|
| 4 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 30'287 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 2'617 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 1'203 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 763 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 629 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 520 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 362 |
| 16 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 95'552 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 4'504 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 4'331 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 2'785 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 2'207 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 2'034 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 1'451 |
| 32 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 149'029 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 7'291 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 7'057 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 3'094 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 5'533 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 4'912 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 4'036 |
| 64 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 197'591 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 12'840 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 11'432 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 10'717 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 8'719 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 7'749 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 5'775 |
| 128 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 267'814 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 24'534 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 19'979 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 15'911 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 15'712 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 14'976 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 10'169 |
| 256 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 205'981 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 28'621 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 26'387 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 26'039 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 24'404 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 18'218 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 12'364 |
The thoughout very well performance in sequential write and read is outstanding. The values are often beyond 100 MByte/s. This doesn't match the proclaimed 120 MByte/s sustained read and write data rates by one fifth but it is still a very good value compared to the other drives in the test. As expected the performance breaks in when the hard drive does a lot of random read and random write operations. In this case you can clearly see the influence of 7'200 rpm agains 15'000 rpm of a Cheetah high-end disk. But also in this test, compared to the other SATA competitors the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB does a very well job.
Discuss this article in the forum [pagebreak]
iozone ops/s
This test shows the same characteristic like the one before. The difference is that we get the number of opertations per second.
iozone ops, sequential write |
|
| 4 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 24'074 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 23'863 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 23'818 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 20'351 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 18'808 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 14'358 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 12'843 |
| 16 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 5'885 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 5'691 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 5'185 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 4'826 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 4'735 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 4'572 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 3'246 |
| 64 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 1'613 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 1'456 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 1'289 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 1'209 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 1'027 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 1'015 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 778 |
| 96 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 1'062 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 1'040 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 975 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 838 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 792 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 583 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 521 |
| 128 KByte | |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 840 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 780 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 773 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 602 |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 587 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 583 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 390 |
iozone ops, sequential read |
|
| 4 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 58'241 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 25'876 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 25'349 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 24'734 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 15'792 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 13'264 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 12'178 |
| 16 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 14'778 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 15'792 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 6'724 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 6'612 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 4'197 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 4'622 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 2'898 |
| 64 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 3'663 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 1'669 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 1'644 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 1'019 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 1'006 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 969 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 754 |
| 96 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 2'428 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 1'122 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 1'117 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 1'078 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 764 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 677 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 522 |
| 128 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 1'844 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 834 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 829 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 806 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 578 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 483 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 381 |
iozone ops, random write |
|
| 4 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 6'297 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 609 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 589 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 440 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 361 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 357 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 332 |
| 16 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 4'574 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 560 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 504 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 371 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 352 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 323 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 274 |
| 64 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 1'229 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 460 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 314 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 266 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 254 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 219 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 198 |
| 96 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 823 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 372 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 277 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 222 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 221 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 210 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 170 |
| 128 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 616 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 325 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 190 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 249 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 210 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 191 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 145 |
iozone ops, random read |
|
| 4 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 5'349 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 886 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 256 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 179 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 156 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 139 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 119 |
| 16 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 4'325 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 843 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 193 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 173 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 148 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 141 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 114 |
| 64 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 2'501 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 690 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 166 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 155 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 132 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 128 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 105 |
| 96 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 1'978 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 571 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 164 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 140 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 128 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 126 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 104 |
| 128 KByte | |
| Intel X25-M SSD SATA | 1'614 |
| Seagate Cheetah 73.4 GB 15k rpm SAS | 534 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TByte SATA | 157 |
| 2 x WD Raptor 36 GByte 10k rpm SATA | 131 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.0 TByte SATA | 119 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 640 GByte SATA | 118 |
| Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus 7.2k rpm SATA | 98 |
The bigger the data blocks the lower the resulting value is logical conclusion because the throughput is constant and gets much higher priority. Also at this point the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB shows its strengths in the sequential benchmarks and proves its very well throughput performance again. Under random read and write conditions we could clearly see the sinking performance when we reduced the block size to four KBytes. You can again watch the gap between the 7'200 rpm and 15'000 rpm drives get bigger and bigger when reducing the block size.
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Conclusion
With the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB Seagate presents a hard disk with a enormous capacity which is realised by packing four 375 GByte platter into one case. The throughput is also astonishing: 110 MByte/s when the drive does sequential reading operations with 256 KByte blocks. Altough this number doenst match 120 MByte/s sustained read and write performance it is still a very good value. As usual with mechanical hard drives the performance decreases with smaller block sizes. So one can see pretty poor performance when the block size is 32 KByte or smaller and random reads and writes are performed. But compared to the other drives the Barracuda still reaches good values.
When operating the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB is very quiet. Even when drive reads or writes data one nearly can't hear it. So the claimed acoustic pressure of 27 dB respectively 29 dB won't be crossed. The maximal power consumtion of 12 Watts under load and 8 Watts in idle are also good values.
The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB is a solid product and we can recommend it as a data gatherer, as a fundament of a game PC or for a worstation.
Soon one will be able to buy the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB at PCP for about CHF 260.-
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Authors: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch and m.seiler@ocaholic.ch