Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB Review: Big Capacity At 5900 RPM

A Tropical Predator Retires; Farewell Barracuda

It’s time to bid farewell to Seagate’s Barracuda. The branding, that is. Not the actual 3.5" desktop hard drive family, which will henceforth be known as Desktop HDD with .15, .14, and .12 generational suffixes. 

Seagate is looking to make a splash with its flagship in the newly-named line-up, the Desktop HDD 4TB, also known by the ST4000DM000 model number. Up until now, Seagate's desktop portfolio didn't stretch as high as 4 TB. Only the business-oriented Constellation ES.3 line included a 4 TB repository. But now that Seagate is playing in the super-high-capacity space, it currently enjoys a commanding price-per-gigabyte advantage. The ST4000DM000 is going for as little as $180 on Newegg right now. That's four and a half cents per gig.

The Desktop HDD 4TB (ST4000DM000) spreads its multiple terabytes across four platters and spins at 5900 RPM. The 1 TB and 3 TB Barracuda 7200.14 drives employ the same platter size, but instead spin at 7200 RPM. As a result, we expect the new Desktop HDD.15 to be somewhat slower, and Seagate's technical specifications reflect this. The company says its Barracuda drives are capable of up to 210 MB/s, whereas the Desktop HDD.15 maxes out at 180 MB/s.

Aside from the extra capacity and slower spindle, nothing else really changes from the Barracuda 7200.14 to the Desktop HDD.15. The drives still sport a SATA 6Gb/s interface, feature 64 MB of data cache once you hit the 1 TB model, and are built for 300,000 load/unload cycles. Our benchmarks should give you a good indication of how the Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 performs, and how it stacks up to the Barracuda 7200.14.

  • vinhn
    Would rather take 3TB @ 7200 over 4TB @ 5800, I'm sure people would agree with that.
    Reply
  • guru_urug
    Good Read.
    Noticed a small insignificant error in the "Drive Surface Temperature" chart. It lists the 4TB HDD.15 as a 7200rpm drive rather than a 5900rpm one.
    Reply
  • outlw6669
    Now that everyone has a full lineup of 4TB drives out, how about finally releasing something larger?
    Bring on the 2160p content!
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    the thing is this hard drive geared towards speed it's mostly geared towards data storage, which is why it's only 5800rpm, so you wouldn't get this obv if you want fast read and write times, that's what SSD's are for.
    Reply
  • Mike Friesen
    The one graph, about temperatures, said "higher is better" beneath it...
    Reply
  • masterjaw
    Great media storage drive for those with SSDs as boot drive which is what is currently on the trend right now.
    Reply
  • csf60
    To all the people who say performance is not important, I would like to remind them we don't have a 4 terabyte SSD yet, and until then, if I need 4TB I have to use a hard drive. And it better be a fast one or I will be sitting for ever in a loading screen in-game, opening big programs and loading 8GB of sample sounds to RAM when I work with music.

    For me this is a big mistake for Seagate. I always bought their drives because they were the fastest, but it seems they are now joining the WD green lineup. I'll probably have to go with hitachi now to have some decent speed.
    Reply
  • wavetrex
    I personally only care about price / gigabyte. Give me the ability to store more HD pron and I'm happy. Don't care if it dies...
    Reply
  • daglesj
    Would anyone use a 4TB drive as a system drive anyway? Short stoked to 200GB maybe but otherwise......? Reliability has never been a strong point with drives over 1TB IMO.

    I just see these big drives as a huge liability really, but folks will hoard their data.
    Reply
  • Larry Bob
    Unique name Seagate.
    Reply