Seagate Desktop HDD.15 4TB Review

Putting together a “Final Thoughts” page can sometimes be difficult, but this isn’t one of those times. This is a product that lives up to what’s reported on its spec sheet; before testing, we had certain expectations, and after testing, those expectations were validated.

For multiple reasons, Seagate’s Desktop HDD.15 should be considered a “value 4TB”. It’s not just its sub-$200 pricing, but also its short 2-year warranty and 5,900 RPM speed. But a “value” it definitely is. The next-best drive costs $70 more, boosts the spindle RPM to 7,200 and bumps the warranty up to 3 years.

Warranty-wise, that $70 does make HGST’s option a very attractive one. That drive carries a 36% price premium over Seagate’s drive here, should perform a bit better, and boosts the warranty by 50%. Let’s face it: a 2-year warranty isn’t long. At all. I recently had a Seagate 1TB drive give up the ghost, and lo and behold, it hadn’t yet exhausted its five-year warranty. Those used to be common back then, but not so much anymore. And given my experiences, I’d say it’s for a reason.

That said, if you happen to purchase a drive like Seagate’s now with its 2-year warranty and it does die at the tail-end, you’re not exactly out any money, since HGST’s current offering scales in price pretty reasonably. Hopefully you’d be adhering my earlier recommendation of running a RAID 1 configuration, and by that time, another 4TB drive should (in theory) cost much less. It’s just the hassle of replacing a drive you’d be left to deal with.

Here’s an overview of the market’s current 4TB models for your perusal:

Aside from the 2-year warranty that kind of puts me off, Seagate’s drive offers so much more that makes it excellent. It’s the best-priced 4TB model on the market right now, and by a fair margin. For those who need a single or multiple units, the best bang-for-the-buck is right here.

The drive didn’t overly impress us throughout our testing, but we never expected it to. To the drive’s favor, its 1TB platters decrease the areal bit density enough to help it match WD’s Black 2TB, which uses 500GB platters. Its latencies are a bit lacking (17ms, vs. ~12ms on a 7,200 RPM model), so I wouldn’t recommend it as an OS drive, but again, it’s unlikely that anyone plans to put an OS on a drive like this – it’s a drive for storage, through and through.

For it’s fantastic value and ample performance, Seagate’s Desktop HDD.15 4TB earns one of our Editor’s Choice awards.

Pros

• Best-priced 4TB on the market (>$0.05/GB)
• Offers good performance; almost on par with WD’s Black 2TB

Cons

• A short 2-year warranty encourages caution. As always, keep your important data redundant

Seagate Desktop HDD.15 4TB