High-Capacity Business Hard Drives: Biggest Of The Bunch
Table of contents
- 1. New HDDs: High Efficiency, High Reliability, High Capacity
- 2. Hitachi Deskstar E7K1000 (1 TB)
- 3. Samsung Spinpoint F2 EcoGreen, 1 TB (HD103SI)
- 4. Seagate Barracuda LP, 500 GB To 2 TB
- 5. Western Digital RE4, 2 TB (WD2002FYPS)
- 6. Drive Comparison Table And Test Setup
Western Digital’s Caviar Green arrived earlier this year, the first drive to hit the coveted 2 TB capacity point. The unit was recently re-validated and is now available under the RAID Edition brand (RE4) for business applications. Samsung sent us its 1 TB version of the Spinpoint F2 EcoGreen, and Seagate provided the low-power Barracuda LP, which now also hits 2 TB capacities and looks to outperform other green drives while still emphasizing efficiency. Lastly, we also included Hitachi’s Deskstar E7K1000, which isn’t marketed as a green drive per se. Instead designed for 24/7 operation, Hitachi’s unit competes with WD’s RE4 drive.
Shorter Warranties
Although WD’s new RE4 drives are branded and labeled as enterprise storage, the manufacturer only provides a three-year warranty, as with its other desktop hard drives. But WD isn’t alone. Seagate, which had offered five-year warranty for all retail products, quietly went back to three-year coverage several months ago. Samsung matches this warranty with its Spinpoint F2 EcoGreen. The one exception is Hitachi’s Deskstar E7K1000 and its beefier five-year warranty.
We understand that competition in the hard drive market is terribly fierce, but we also believe that long warranties represent the proper way for vendors to show they have confidence in what they sell.
5,900 RPM by Seagate
Most drive makers target power savings by releasing new drives based on lower spindle speeds. WD and Samsung, for instance, re-introduced 5,400 RPM speeds on their green drives. Hitachi has been reluctant to jump on the green bandwagon, with the exception of its 7,200 RPM Deskstar P7K500. This drive offers standout speed while keeping power consumption relatively low due to a single-platter layout.
Seagate recently introduced its own spin on how a low-power desktop drive should look. The Barracuda LP does rotate platters at reduced speed, but Seagate decided to have the drives run at an unusual 5,900 RPM, which is supposed to deliver the best combination of high performance, high capacity, and low power consumption.
We’re about to find the out if Seagate’s claims hold up under heavy testing.
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Definitely evolutionary changes, not revolutionary, but that's what was expected with these drives. A good step in the right direction, nonetheless. I just purchased two of the Samsung Ecogreen 1.5TB drives. They are fantastic drives at a fantastic price. This is great for people that want to backup their entire HD (and SD) movie collection. Thanks for the information, Tom's.
i would still go with the seagate barracuda 7200.12 =D
Woah, Déjà vu! I clicked "next" and got a "Guru Meditation: XID: 275861695" error!
are you guys running on Amiga OS? Or are you just Amiga Fanboys?
Good article up until the Guru decided I wasn't worthy ;-)
Should have thrown in a caviar black and a caviar green for comparison
Doh!... hide the above remark.... I should look at the charts first.
Amazing the performance they're getting out of these slower spindle speed hard drives
wait.... 1tb on a single platter? AMAZING
Are we still on this green thing? Seagate 7200.12 FTW, also Hitachi.. didn't see that one coming. Warranty is important to me because I demand 24/7 on for at least 3 years.
It's about time to step up the RAID array from WD RE2's, tough competition.
Seagate LP performance is impressive but I'm going to have to stick with WD due to Seagate's recent track record.
I'd rather you stick to testing comparable sized drives honestly. I don't care if the 1TB drive is faster, if I have to have a 2TB. Which is what I'm looking for next.
Its too bad you couldn't include the new enterprise class 2TB drive from Hitachi, the Ultrastar A7K2000, that rotates at 7,200 rpm. I assume it would have kicked most of these other drives butts.
I'm also left wondering where the long-ago announced Seagate Constellation ES 2TB 7,200 rpm drive is. With the laptop form factor hitting 1TB recently, I'm starting to wonder if these guys have taken their eye off the 3.5 inch space. Which might be a mistake right now given they're going to get their asses eaten by SSDs in the laptop arena any minute now, and the big 3.5 inch drives might be one of the few areas they're actually safe for a while.
I bought 4 Seagate 2TB drives and the retail package states: 5 year warranty.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/p [...] _5900_rpm/
See under Overview - Key Features and Benefits.
There is something wrong with the dBA readings for EcoGreen F2 1000GB. Can't be higher on idle.
[citation]we wonder why anyone would still buy the Deskstar if others deliver the same performance at reduced power consumption[/citation]
Not saying I would personally buy the Hitachi, but I also wouldn't buy a drive just because it's a low power model. I'm usually looking for quiet operation, read performance, and low temps. I'm all for making useful contributions to use less resources in life but 3 watts an hour is nothing, I'd never even notice the $0.25 change in my monthly bill. I could save more by not OC'ing my quad which is doing me no good sitting here surfing.
In a laptop low power drives are great, but my desktop doesn't run on batteries.
The graphs of IOPs per queue depth for different load types are surely missing... Not the same for irrelevant PCMark desktop benchies, which are filling a long useless page.
I just bought 1 myself from mwave.com.au @ $299.99 and it works perfectly =)
I just bought 1 myself from mwave.com.au @ $299.99 and it works perfectly =)
Bought one what?
I bought the Seagate 2TB one
"High-Capacity Business hard drives" - but only one with business warranty!
So all other are consumer class!
I ended up getting the 1.5 TB 7200 rpm Seagate. It has been amazing. I posted my experience here:http://ellipz.com/?cat=5
I also have the Samsung F1 and the WD Green 1 TB drives. All three have been great.
3 watts per hour might not be much per drive, but if you're running a large SAN with 100s of drives, it quickly adds up to a respectable saving.