Should I get the Seagate 7200.11 320GB?

[sseyler]

Okay so I've been needing a new hard drive to replace my WD Caviar 250GB Raid 0 setup. It seems that there are quite a few drives now with high enough data density to provide transfer rates that can outperform WD Raptors and keep up with the WD Velociraptor. One of those drives in particular seems the be Seagate 7200.11 320GB. It performs nearly as well as the Velociraptor in Min/Avg/Max write and read transfer speeds. The weird thing is, it manages perform at THE VERY BOTTOM (with the exception of one) of all the I/O tests (database, webserver, etc.). I'm not sure if this is a fluke, but it pretty much kills my hopes for wanting to buy this drive. The weird part is, the Seagate 7200.10 250GB hard drive performs fine in these tests, as well as the higher capacity Seagate 7200.11 drives. What gives?

If this is the case (and isn't a bad test batch), and it really does perform poorly in I/O tests, can anyone tell me how I would notice this in day-to-day usage? Help is appreciated greatly, thanks!

 

[sseyler]

I can't believe no one will respond to this.

 

[gowens]

take it easy. the charts here at Tom's would suggest the drive performs very well, and the prices tend to be good. However, I've read a fair amount that the 7200.11 series have had some reliability problems, but it's very unscientific. It may well be that they've sold so many that it's natural a vocal few have had failures and written about them.

 

[gowens]

...and read this thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/246128-32-does-seagate-barracuda-7200-st3320613as-stink

 

[sseyler]

Don't worry, I'm not heated lol... I've read that other thread, but I'd also like to know about the I/O performance issues of this drive. They seem pretty off-beat compared to other .11 drives.