Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB

The real world tests are rather simple. So simple in fact, that I almost feel like I am taking the easy road out. I have four sets of files… three equal 4GB and the other is 8GB:

• 4GB Solid (One File, 3,882,051,829 Bytes)
• 4GB Small (1,064 Files & 77 Folders, 3,981,538,497 Bytes)
• 4GB Large (2,130 Files & 0 Folders, 3,863,853,735 Bytes)
• 8GB Solid (One File, 7,937,451,698 Bytes)

This set was copied to the testing drive, and then were copied to another portion of the disk. Results are in seconds, and of course the lower the better.

This chart agrees a lot more with HD Tach than with HD Tune and PC Mark. There are some very evident differences here.. with the 320GB drive easily coming on top from each test. The 8GB file copied 20%+ faster on the 320GB… so the benefits of the 7200.10 series is quite apparent. These tests are not as far fetched as you may think though… how often do you move a 4GB ISO around? I do it often, especially with Linux distro downloads, and the like. That’s why this type of test is rather useful.

This is a great drive, there’s no two ways about it. In fact, I am giving it a 10/10 and our Editors choice. That may seem a little high, but this drive well deserves it. In the same price/density range, we have a Western Digital 320GB drive that retails for about $6 more. That drive is slightly slower in the latency department, but it’s so small it doesn’t matter. However, that drive is the SE2 version, which should prove to not be as fast as the 7200.10 enterprise drives. In addition to that, Seagate offers a full 5-year warranty, while the WD only offers 3. I think it’s clear that this drive earns its great rating.

I bought this hard drive last month when I was building my AM2 system, and have been extremely pleased with it. For the price… there is nothing to complain about. In addition to that though, it offers great speed as we have seen in our tests. In the end, if you are looking for big storage or a RAID setup but don’t want to haul out a huge wad of cash, I would highly recommend you take a look at the Barracuda 7200.10 320GB hard drive.

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