Seagate 1.5TB Harddrive

[seekermeister]

I'm considering a new harddrive, but until I ran across an attractive offer for the 1.5TB, I had been thinking of the 1TB instead. The larger drive has the following specs:

Formatted Capacity : 1.5TB
Interface Type: Serial ATA-300
Buffer Size: 32MB
Spindle Speed: (RPM) 5900 RPM
Average Latency: 4.16 ms
Data Transfer Rate: Buffer to Host Up to 300MBps
Sustained Throughput: Up to 115MBps
Ports and Connectors: 7-pin Serial ATA Connector
Manufacturer Warranty: 5 Year Limited Warranty

The thing that stands out in my eye is that the spindle speed is slow compared to the 1TB, which is 7200 RPM, but I think the warranty is a bit longer.

I recall recently reading an article posted in the forums news board that said that the 1 TB was the fastest drive in it's class, but the sustained throughput of this drive is slightly faster...I think.

The extra 500GBs would definitely be a plus, but would it really perform as well as the 1TB? Is there any other aspect to consider?

 

[Zidane24]

that...is an odd RPM value for a HD

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'm considering a new harddrive, but until I ran across an attractive offer for the 1.5TB, I had been thinking of the 1TB instead. The larger drive has the following specs:

Formatted Capacity : 1.5TB
Interface Type: Serial ATA-300
Buffer Size: 32MB
Spindle Speed: (RPM) 5900 RPM
Average Latency: 4.16 ms
Data Transfer Rate: Buffer to Host Up to 300MBps
Sustained Throughput: Up to 115MBps
Ports and Connectors: 7-pin Serial ATA Connector
Manufacturer Warranty: 5 Year Limited Warranty

The thing that stands out in my eye is that the spindle speed is slow compared to the 1TB, which is 7200 RPM, but I think the warranty is a bit longer.

I recall recently reading an article posted in the forums news board that said that the 1 TB was the fastest drive in it's class, but the sustained throughput of this drive is slightly faster...I think.

The extra 500GBs would definitely be a plus, but would it really perform as well as the 1TB? Is there any other aspect to consider?

I have not looked this drive up, but at 5900 rpm it is almost certainly a "green" model. WD has similar models that actually use Green in the description.

As a general rule, 7200 rpms are going to be faster all other things being equal, but you might not notice the difference if you didn't know what you had.

A 1.5 TB 5900 rpm drive in all likelihood has only 3 platters of high density. This helps to improve performance in spite of not being 7200. It may be faster than a Seagate 7200 drive would have been a couple of years ago.

Perform "as well"?

No.

Perform plenty good enough depending on what you do with it?

Yes.

Many will try to tell you it's bad form to use this drive for an OS. I wouldn't tell you that.

This drive is likely cheaper to buy, cheaper to operate, cooler running, and quieter than its 7200 rpm counterpart.

32 MB cache helps it out too. That's all most 7200 rpm drives have.

There is a long thread at the top of one of these forums (hardware?) where you can actually scroll through HD Tune screenshots on a wide variety of drives to see relative performance. Betcha can find an HD Tune report on this drive--either on this forum or with Google.

I bought a WD 1.5 Green a few months ago--no problems. With any luck, I will never buy another mechanical (spinning platter) drive.

Warranties are a marketing tool. You won't often hear of a drive failure after 3 years and before 5 years for which the owner made a warranty claim, although I'm sure it happens. If they last 3, they may well last 15.

Re 5900 RPM: I think WD Green drives are marketed as "variable" speed and actually fluctuate depending on usage. If I recall correctly, at least some "5900 rpm" drives are in fact variable and 5900 is an average used for marketing purposes---an attempt to avoid the "stigma" of 5400--and that manufacturers are quite cagey about divulging actual speeds.

Edit:

The HD performance sticky is at the top of Performance and Maintenance. I have a post in that thread showing my WD 640 Black and WD 1.5 Green.

 

[seekermeister]

The ad says that this drive has 4 platters rather than 3. In terms of performance, I tend to only look at the seek time and the throughput. In these two aspects the two drives are very close together. In terms of the perceptible difference in performance, that is another story.

 

[seekermeister]

This drive is on special for $89.99 + $6.98 shipping, which is equivalent to the 1TB, and the drive is retail, which has a couple of software diagnostic/operational programs, which the 1TB doesn't come with, as it is a bulk drive. This is about 1/2 the price that Seagate wants for it on a direct order.

 

[valtonray]

if it's going to be for data and not the programs or OS you probably won't notice the reduced speed as much but thats a really good deal i might order one just because.

 

[seekermeister]

Both of you keep talking about reduced speed, but from the specs given, the speed isn't reduced, despite the lower spindle speed, so I really don't understand the comments.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Couple of points:

The utilities included with the retail version are undoubtedly available at no charge from the Seagate site, so I would not let that be a factor. The retail pack should include cables, which may be a factor for you if you don't have any.

More importantly:

I don't place much faith in Newegg hardware reviews, but I noticed this:

This drive has exactly as many review rated excellent as poor: 63.

Normally, excellent reviews outnumber poors by at least 2 to 1, sometimes 3 to 1. I checked other large green drives and excellents outnumbered poors by significant margins.

I didn't read all the reviews, but might make me wonder.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Re speed:

Spindle speeds have some correlation to benchmarks, but there are obviously other factors:

Reading most of the time?

Writing most of the time?

Average file size 4k?

Average file size 2 Gigs?

File in 3 nearby fragments on platter 1?

File in 40 widely scattered fragments on 4 platters?

Leventy leven other things going on with the CPU or not?

You can't know the underlying circumstances of any benchmarks unless specified in the test.

Additionally: if you are talking about marketing specs as opposed to private party real life tests or formal benchmarking, I wouldn't pay much attention to them.

 

[seekermeister]

Couple of points:

The utilities included with the retail version are undoubtedly available at no charge from the Seagate site, so I would not let that be a factor. The retail pack should include cables, which may be a factor for you if you don't have any.

More importantly:

I don't place much faith in Newegg hardware reviews, but I noticed this:

This drive has exactly as many review rated excellent as poor: 63.

Normally, excellent reviews outnumber poors by at least 2 to 1, sometimes 3 to 1. I checked other large green drives and excellents outnumbered poors by significant margins.

I didn't read all the reviews, but might make me wonder.

I'm not sure what drive that you checked on Newegg, but here is the one that I'm looking at, but it only has 1 review:

Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda ST315005N4A1AS-RK 1.5TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Retail

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I was looking at this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/NewProduct.aspx?Item=N82E16822148412

The one you linked is 145 plus shipping on my PC; if you are getting it for 90 plus shipping, I assume you have some special price not available to mere mortals.

The one you show has only 1 review; from just a couple of days ago.

I assume that means it is a brand new model or rarely purchased--both of which would spook me.

It may be the absolute equivalent of the one I linked to--just a retail kit. Retail kits are outsold by OEMs at Newegg, which may explain the single review.

Go to Seagate's own site and see if they are equivalent other than packaging.

It might be an "enterprise level" drive rather than a consumer drive.

Personally--without knowing more, I would avoid it for that reason alone. I can't read about its track record and don't know if it is equivalent to the one with modest reviews.

 

[seekermeister]

Odd, that is an atypical page for Newegg, because I didn't see any detailed specs for the drive. I wil probably order the one in question, with or without reviews and keep my fingers crossed. I noticed one of the reviews complaining about poor support at Seagate, but I have RMAed a couple of their drives without any problems.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

The one you mentioned; info from seagate

ST315005N4A1AS-RK

ST315005N4A1AS-RK Barracuda 3.5-inch SATA 5900 RPM 1.5TB Hard Drive | Seagate

The one I mentioned:

ST31500541AS Barracuda LP SATA 3Gb/s 1.5TB Hard Drive | Seagate

At first glance, they may be identical?

 

[seekermeister]

After checking here:

Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB 5900RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Desktop Hard Drive ST315005N4A1AS-RK-Retail Kit - Compare Prices

I've had second thoughts. I guess what they say about things that seem too good to be true usually are.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Maybe a good move on your part.

FYI: The 1.5 green WD is periodically available at 99.99 free shipping in USA from Newegg. This model:

WD Caviar Green WD15EADS-00P8B0 1.5TB SATA 3.0 - OEM

has only 3 platters, a good thing. (You can tell that from the 00P8B0 suffix)

Seagate had it together 2 or 3 years ago, but may be slipping, at least with some models.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
SLOW I/O is the one thing most people seem to put up with --but is usually the SINGLEMOST CAUSE OF POOR PERFORMANCE.

The 5900 RPM is OK if the disk will be used for DATA / Music etc only --but I would recommend NOT putting a paging or Photoshop scratch volumes on it.

You can actully have an OS partition on it however since once W7 is loaded and the paging files initialized data reads from the actual W7 OS aren't that frequent.

So provided you DON'T put the paging or Photoshop scratch files on it it should be OK for a cheap mass storage volume.

Incidentally if you use database software such as MySQL don't put the DB index areas on this disk either (better don't put the DB on it at all) since any DB query is highly I/O bound and will result in poor performance if you have several concurrent users querying the DB.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[seekermeister]

Maybe a good move on your part.

FYI: The 1.5 green WD is periodically available at 99.99 free shipping in USA from Newegg. This model:

WD Caviar Green WD15EADS-00P8B0 1.5TB SATA 3.0 - OEM

has only 3 platters, a good thing. (You can tell that from the 00P8B0 suffix)

Seagate had it together 2 or 3 years ago, but may be slipping, at least with some models.

Newegg and I have had a permanent parting of our ways. It wouldn't matter to me if they were giving the drives away free, I would never order it from them.

 

[seekermeister]

Hi there
SLOW I/O is the one thing most people seem to put up with --but is usually the SINGLEMOST CAUSE OF POOR PERFORMANCE.

The 5900 RPM is OK if the disk will be used for DATA / Music etc only --but I would recommend NOT putting a paging or Photoshop scratch volumes on it.

You can actully have an OS partition on it however since once W7 is loaded and the paging files initialized data reads from the actual W7 OS aren't that frequent.

So provided you DON'T put the paging or Photoshop scratch files on it it should be OK for a cheap mass storage volume.

Incidentally if you use database software such as MySQL don't put the DB index areas on this disk either (better don't put the DB on it at all) since any DB query is highly I/O bound and will result in poor performance if you have several concurrent users querying the DB.

Cheers
jimbo

It wasn't the performance of the drive that bothered me, it was the fact that every review shown on the page that I linked (post #14), spoke of mechanical failures.

 

[pparks1]

Newegg and I have had a permanent parting of our ways. It wouldn't matter to me if they were giving the drives away free, I would never order it from them.

Well that is too bad to hear. Almost everybody that I work with buys almost exclusively with NewEgg. The only problem I ever had was when placing an order for work, on a corporate card which did not have the work address on record and the order was held. Seemed customer service was really difficult to work with on the matter and nothing over the phone could resolve the issue. Other than that though, all of my personal orders have been handled very fast, everything has been correct and i've never had a need to return a single thing to them. I just checked and I've placed 22 different orders.

 

[pparks1]

Newegg and I have had a permanent parting of our ways. It wouldn't matter to me if they were giving the drives away free, I would never order it from them.

Well that is too bad to hear. Almost everybody that I work with buys almost exclusively with NewEgg. The only problem I ever had was when placing an order for work, on a corporate card which did not have the work address on record and the order was held. Seemed customer service was really difficult to work with on the matter and nothing over the phone could resolve the issue. Other than that though, all of my personal orders have been handled very fast, everything has been correct and i've never had a need to return a single thing to them. I just checked and I've placed 22 different orders.

More on topic with the thread, I used to use Seagate drives almost exclusively because their performance was great and their failure rates were low. However, it seems as drive capacity has increased, that Seagate has suffered lots of firmware issues and failing drives...so I'm more or less back to using Western Digital for my mechanical drives these days.