Benchmark Analysis
The overall benchmark results confirm that both the larger platter size and greater 32MB data cache help the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB easily outpace the 7200.10 generation, and take the top performance slot in this review. The latest and largest Seagate drive does not put in a world-beating performance, but it does provide an incremental advance, while offering a full 1TB of data capacity. The burst mode and data transfer results are extremely good, and the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB drive keeps its access times low and temperature within check.
Overall performance was excellent, and the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB drive did extremely well in the real-world evaluation. Thermal heat was average for its class, and the drive was silent through most of the testing. It exhibited no drive whine or undue vibration, and its seek noise was noticeably lower compared to some of the other drives. Overall, the 1TB Seagate hard drive impressed on all levels, and looks to be another very good bet for high-performance users.
Value
Seagate hard drives are usually priced very competitively, but lately there has been a slight premium associated with the Barracuda name. Part of this is due to the brand loyalty that Seagate has developed over the years, but the longer product warranty has also had an effect. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB is currently priced at $235-$240, which compares to the Western Digital Caviar GP 1TB ($220), Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB ($250), Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB ($260), and Western Digital Caviar RE2 GP 1TB ($280) drives.
The "sweet spot" for SATA drives still exists at the 750GB range, but for those looking at a full 1TB, this is actually very competitive for a Seagate drive, especially considering the top-end specifications and high-end performance. Seagate also offers a 5-year warranty on their OEM drives, which compares the standard 3-year warranty offered by the other large manufacturers like Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung and Hitachi on their consumer-level OEM drives, although WD does match the 5-year warranty on its Raptor and RAID Edition lines.
* Please note that these prices were taken at the time of review and are not meant to reflect long-term trends.
The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB hard drive offers a prime upgrade in terms of both performance and data capacity, while maintaining the quality and warranty that has made Seagate such a popular brand. It's not a quantum leap, but the upgrade to 32MB of onboard cache and a full terabyte of disk capacity does make for a nice evolutionary step up. The drive is quiet, fast and huge, and is actually one of the lowest-cost 1TB models, but it's time for Seagate to get with the times and switch the jumper to 3.0 Gb/s by default.
