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Seagate Barracuda ST3500320AS SD15 7200.11

Jayesh Limaye, Jun 05, 2008 1949 hrs IST

Will this drive be more than a match for the ruling champion from Western Digital? Read on

Expert Rating:

Super fast speeds, runs cool, huge capacity, SATA-II.

None.

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EXPERT REVIEW

The Drive

This drive boasts of 500GB, which is fast attaining mainstream status. This seems like a huge amount of space and should be more than enough to store all your games, movies, songs and data. It features the perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology that enables better areal density (or bit density) in this drive. The 7200 RPM means better seeks, and the huge 32 MB buffer means an uninterrupted data transfer.

The ST3500320AS is a 7200.11 series drive and looks like any other internal hard drive from Seagate. If you look at the SATA connector side, you will notice that there is a jumper present on the right. This jumper is to set the drive to the older SATA-I mode for backward compatibility with older motherboards that do not support SATA-II. This jumper is very small and you need a pair of tweezers to pull it out. Without the jumper put in, the drive operates in the SATA-II mode. The drive is already set to operate in SATA-I mode when you purchase it, so you must remember to remove this jumper for it to operate in SATA-II mode.

Only a small part of the drive electronics is exposed from below

There are some improvements from the 7200.10 to the 7200.11 series drives. One important improvement is that the areal density has been increased from 188 GB per platter to 250 GB. This is therefore being touted as featuring "second generation PMR recording technology". Another improvement is the doubling of the buffer size from 16 MB to 32 MB. Earlier only 1 TB drives used to feature such a huge amount of cache. Enough talk about the specs, let find out how it performs.

USER COMMENTS

I got it 2 months ago for 3300

by aditya, cg, on Nov 22, 2008 10:47 PM, Report abuse Reply

You will get it for 3700+4% tax in SP Road,bangalore..

by surendra, bangalore, on Jun 06, 2008 01:44 PM, Report abuse Reply

which shop man?

by jisse, Bangalore, on Jun 06, 2008 08:14 PM, Report abuse

I've been roaming around SP Raod for this HDD for the past 2 weeks they have been saying it's out of stock still.. if you know where i can get it in SP Road pleas say which Shop and if possible a Ph# would help alot...... Thanks

by Robs, Bangalore, on Aug 26, 2008 06:45 PM, Report abuse

i baught it yesterday at Rs.3550 includin taxes

by kingameya_k, mumbai, on Jun 20, 2008 11:34 PM, Report abuse Reply

hey dude r u sure itz wid 32 mb buffer cache.......coz 2day 03-07--08 itz street price is Rs.4200 wid tax..........just check d driver once through bench mark. tc. hv a gr8 day

by Icysun, bhubaneswar, on Jul 03, 2008 11:27 PM, Report abuse

i purchased this for Rs. 3650+tax from S.P road on 10/06/2008. I'm yet to install & test it but i'm impressed to see the review! Great job guys!

by bobby, Bangalore, on Jun 11, 2008 01:01 AM, Report abuse Reply

Got it for 4450 last month in Bangalore

by zero, Bengalooru, on Jun 09, 2008 11:19 AM, Report abuse Reply

verry good

by rajendra kumar , chennai, on Jun 07, 2008 09:00 AM, Report abuse Reply

I won't call this sxcellent value for money. That position will go to WD 640GB one

by Anonymous, hyd, on Jun 06, 2008 07:59 PM, Report abuse Reply

I feel your products are very good in nature

by shine s, trivandrum, on Jun 06, 2008 03:35 PM, Report abuse Reply

good emaicom