Seagate and Western Digital 1TB Drives: Improved and Green
by Dave Robinet on November 26, 2007 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
The Tale of the Tape
| Hard Drive Specifications | ||
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB | Western Digital Caviar GP 1TB | |
| Manufacturer's Stated Capacity | 1000.2GB (1 Terabyte) | 1000.2GB (1 Terabyte) |
| Operating System Stated Capacity | 931.5 GB | 931.5 GB |
| Interface | SATA 3Gb/s | SATA 3Gb/s |
| Rotational Speed | 7,200 RPM | 5400-7200 RPM (variable) |
| Cache Size | 32 MB | 16 MB |
| Average Latency | 4.16ms (nominal) | 5.6ms (nominal) |
| Read Seek Time | 8.9ms | 8.9ms |
| Number of Heads | 8 | 8 |
| Number of Platters | 4 | 4 |
| Power Draw (Idle/Load) | 8W/12.0W | 4W/7.4 W |
| Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing |
| Warranty | 5 Years | 3 Years |
The specifications chart spells out the extent of the differences between the two drives. The Seagate drive runs at 7200RPM with a 32MB buffer. The Western Digital drive's IntelliPower algorithm, which varies the rotational speed between 5400RPM and 7200RPM, dictates the Western Digital's rotational speed. Despite this variable rotational speed, Western Digital specifies the same average seek time as Seagate. Western Digital lists this product as a desktop-class drive; it carries a three-year warranty, which falls short of the Seagate's five-year warranty. Western Digital's enterprise drive (RE2-GP) carries a five-year warranty and offers similar performance.
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Luminair - Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - link
"Operating System Stated Capacity"Lets be clear so maybe you can be clear in the next article.
The IEC, IEEE, CPIM, and NIST define Giga (G) as 1,000,000,000 or one billion.
The same standards organizations define Gibi (Gi) as 1,073,741,824.
As such, by standard definitions, these hard drives are in fact 1000GB, or 1000 gigabytes.
Your "Operating System Stated Capacity" really means "Windows Explorer Capacity". Other operating systems don't get it wrong like Windows does. So if you report this wrong information at all, you should make the truth known -- that Windows is well known to WRONGLY report GiB as GB (and MiB for MB and so on).
Those drives have 1000 gigabytes of space. Windows Explorer and solid state memory companies report the space incorrectly.
Luminair - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
These guys get it right :) http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=browser&ar...">http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=bro...&ima...valherumk2 - Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - link
Looks like another review of the 7200.11 drive where it appears the reviewer didn't remove the jumper limiting it to SATA 1. Interface bandwidth burst rate is over 200MB/s on my 7200.11 with the jumper removed.Zap - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
That's also the first thing that came to my mine... "dude forgot to remove the jumper."Zap - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
That's also the first thing that came to my mine... "dude forgot to remove the jumper."100proof - Monday, November 26, 2007 - link
Dave, is there a reason that Samsung's 1TB drivewas not included in this review? The drive is
difficult to obtain in the US but is available in
other countries at this point in time. Tomshardware
has already posted a review, and there is also
discussion taking place on storagereview.com
Tomshardware Review of Samsung F1 1TB
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/21/samsung_ove...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/21/samsung_ove...
Storagereview discussion of F1 Series
http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?showtopi...">http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?showtopi...
Dave Robinet - Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - link
It's a matter of availability, not of lack of interest. We do like the latest Samsung offerings - they simply didn't have a drive shipped to us in the lab in time for the article.If they get us a 1TB drive for us to have a look at, then we'll gladly put it in a future article.
Thanks for reading!
quanta - Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - link
In the meantime, Tom's hardware did the Samsung Spinpoint F1 review[1], which showed it has great non-server performance. In fact, it outruns WD Raptor WD150ADFD in some tests. Power consumption is between 'cuda 7200.11 and Caviar GP.[1] http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/21/samsung_ove...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/21/samsung_ove...
piasabird - Monday, November 26, 2007 - link
You get a lower overall price per Gig by using two 500 gb drives.Googer - Monday, November 26, 2007 - link
With a pair of 500GB hard drives, you do not get it in a single volume, power consumption increases, RAID 0 decreases reliability and increases error possibilities.The fact that it takes two drive bays is a sore thumb to those who build small form factor multi-media systems with only one drive bay that will also funtion as a Digtal Video Recorder.
I should also add, this "GREEN" drive is ideal for a TiVO upgrade due to it's large size, quiet operation, low heat, and noise output.