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We have collected 6 reviews of the Seagate Barracuda XT 2 To. Experts rate Seagate Barracuda XT 2 To 7.7/10. Reviewsor.com helps you find reviews, best prices, user reviews of the Seagate Barracuda XT 2 To and Seagate Hard drives.
If recently reviewed solid-state drives, such as the OCZ Vertex 3, are notable for their extreme speed and high cost per gigabyte, the Seagate Barracuda XT is distinguished by its extreme storage space and affordability. The drive offers up to 3TB, the largest hard drive currently available, at just around $240 or 8 cents per gigabyte, and its performance is excellent for a traditional platter-based hard drive. Supporting the latest SATA 6Gbps (SATA 3) standard, in our testing it was one of the fastest consumer-grade hard drives we've seen. If you're looking for a quiet hard drive that offers top capacity, backward compatibility, and fast performance, at a price that won't break your bank, the Seagate Barracuda XT is the way to go. The drive works well as either the main or the secondary hard drive for a desktop, especially one with built-in support for SATA 3 and an EFI-based motherboard. The Barracuda XT is the 25.4-millimeter-thick, 3.5-inch standard size, like most other SATA desktop hard drives. On the inside it comes with 64MB of cache memory and spins at 7,200rpm. In addition to supporting SATA 3, the drive also works with the existing SATA standards, including the popular SATA 2 (3Gbps) and SATA (1.5Gbps).
The 2 TB Barracuda XT is basically Seagate's equivalent to the Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Black. Let's see how it compares to WD's five-star hard drive. This hard drive is part of Seagate's high-end and high-performance XT range, and to make sure it doesn't disappoint, the 2 TB Barracuda XT has a 6 Gbps SATA-3 interface, a spin speed of 7200 rpm and 64 MB of cache memory. Remember that unlike the hard drive's overall score, the rating here is based on a comparison been all the drives we've tested, including SSDs. This can help explain surprisingly low scores. The CrystalDiskMark test gives results that place the Barracuda XT neck and neck with its WD rival. However, it doesn't do quite so well at writing medium-sized files: The access time test—also carried out with AS-SSD—shows the Barracuda XT lagging behind the Caviar Black, which is the second-fastest hard drive we've tested in this field (just after the unbeatable WD VelociRaptor 600 GB): Practical Performance The PCMark Vantage test confirms the previous findings. The drive performs very well but is still out-done by certain star models: The Barracuda XT got a score of 5388 while the Caviar Black managed 5702.
Although Solid State Drives are all the rage lately, they comprise only a fraction of the overall desktop PC storage market. While SSDs are undeniably fast and enhance the overall user experience, they are also prohibitively expensive for many users and offer relatively low capacities. As such, traditional, spinning hard drives, with their huge capacities and low cost per gigabyte, still make up the lion's share of the market.One of the more interesting hard drives to hit the scene recently is the Seagate Barracuda XT. Its 2TB capacity, 64MB of cache, and 7200 RPM spindle speed will automatically piqué the interest of many enthusiasts. But couple those features with the drive's support for SATA 6G and the story gets all the more interesting.We've tested the Seagate Barracuda XT while connected to SATA 6G and SATA 3G controllers, and compared its performance to a 2TB drive from WD, and Seagate's own 7200.11 offering. Take a look at the XT's full specs below, then check out the rest of the piece to see just how this drive performs and whether or not it's worth springing for a SATA 6G capable mobo or controller... The test the Seagate Barracuda XT, we enlisted the help of Asus and their P7P55D Premium motherboard.
In our review of the Seagate Barracuda XT hard drive we put it through the ringer to see if it's worth its premium price tag.When computer technology takes a step forward, it is sometimes better to stick with the status quo and let someone else help the industry recoup their R&D investment. When video cards first jumped from the AGP slot to PCI Express, for instance: PCI Express videocards didn’t deliver enough of a performance boost to justify buying a whole new motherboard. We could be seeing the same scenario unfold with the next generation of hard drive interface, known as SATA 6Gb/s – but since Seagate’s 2TB Barracuda XT currently is the only hard drive you can buy today that uses the new standard, it’s impossible to know. Theoretically, the SATA 6Gbps delivers twice the throughput of the previous standard, SATA 3Gb/s (as you’ve no doubt guessed, six gigabits per second compared to three gigabits per second); in the real world, it didn’t matter much which interface we connected the Barracuda XT to.In fairness, Seagate’s newest drive does deliver twice the capacity and double the cache of its previous top-of-the-line model, the 1TB Barracuda 7200.12, and it’s much faster than that model even when connected to the older SATA 3Gb/s interface (the drive is backward compatible).
With the holiday season nigh everyone is getting together their lists for the best gadgets and gear of 2009. One item that doesn’t usually receive much attention is hard drives, frankly very little changes between drives. The lack of fan fair in this market has allowed Seagate to subtly release the Barracuda XT in a 2TB flavor while that by itself is unremarkable the fact that it comes in the new SATA III standard couldn’t get much better unless they wrapped it in bacon. Theoretically by doubling the SATA pipe you allow for a staggering 6GB/s data transfer, coupled with a beefy 64mb of DRAM could this be the drive to beat? Follow me while we review this potentially impressive drive. In today’s world where you get fancy packaging to go with the latest hardware, I was to be very surprised when Seagate sent the Barracuda XT in nothing more than a OEM clear plastic case, very low tech but none the less effective at protecting the drive, hopefully the consumer will feel all that extra savings… The drive itself does not have much to commend physically. The drive looks like a standard 3.5 inch drive thicker than some but by no means a large drive.
Second-generation Serial ATA hardware has been with us since 2005. That's a long, long time ago in PC terms. Back in 2005, motherboards supporting the then-fresh Serial ATA spec used Nvidia's nForce4 and Intel's 955X Express core-logic chipsets. AMD and Intel were just dipping into 64-bit waters, and then only with a single core at a time. Graphics chips had discrete pixel and vertex shaders that would be considered horribly inflexible by today's standards. Ultraportable Windows PCs started at a couple thousand dollars, not a few hundred. And you were blissfully unaware that John and Kate Gosselin even existed. Yeah, so-called SATA II has been around for a while. A draft specification for its third-generation replacement was presented back in 2008, with the final spec published in May of this year. So what's new? Not a whole lot, to be honest. Native Command Queuing has gained a streaming command that can facilitate isochronous transfers. The SATA-IO governing body also promises better NCQ performance thanks to a new feature that enables "host processing and management of outstanding NCQ commands."
| Retailer | Information | Prices | |
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SEAGATE ST32000641AS 2tb-7200rpm Sata-6gbps Hard Drives | $208 | See it |
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Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB 7.2K RPM 64MB Buffer 3.5 Inches Form Factor S | $211 | See it |
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Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Bare Drive - ST32000641AS | $249.99 | See it |
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Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Bare Drive - ST32000641AS | $250.35 | See it |
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Seagate Barracuda ST32000641AS 2 TB Internal Hard Drive - SATA - 7200 rpm - 64 MB Buffer - Hot Swappable | $255 | See it |
| MGTAPE | Seagate 2TB 7200RPM 64MB Buffer, Serial ATA / 600, Barracuda XT | $289 | See it |
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Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB 7.2K RPM 64MB Buffer 3.5 Inches Form Factor S | $291 | See it |