Round-Up: Comparison Testing of 22 Hard Disk Drives

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Seagate Barracuda ATA 7200.8: The Upgrade Drive

The Barracuda ATA 7200.8, with up to 400 GB of capacity, is a good example of what we mean when we say that an UltraATA/100 drive can operate nearly as fast as a SATA model; it features theoretical data transfer rates of 300 MB/s and 16 MB on-board cache. The ST3400832A performs just barely slower than the SATA-version, the ST2400832AS. The UltraATA/100 interface limitation of 85 MB/s matches the drive's capabilities well, since it can't move more than 70 MB/s to or from the bus anyway. Another advantage is this drive's 5-year warranty. Anyone who can live without Serial ATA and still wants a bigger hard disk will find the Barracuda 7200.8 drives among the best upgrade options available.

Patrick Schmid
Patrick Schmid
Editor-in-Chief (2005-2006)

Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.