Test platform and testing technique

At one time, everything treated with some distrust and skepticism to the Serial ATA interface. Although now, this standard firmly entered the list of necessary interfaces in new motherboards. Almost all modern rigid rigs have a model with the SATA interface and the main rate is made to this interface. The first SATA disc models are recognized very disappointed - the data transfer rate was significantly lower than the manufacturer and inferior to the traditional models of parallel ATA.

Today we will try to measure the speed of access and transferring the new disc data Seagate Barracude 7200.7 160GB having an SATA interface.

Why SATA?

Many have a very reasonable question: why Serial ATA, and how is this new-fashioned interface better than his "parallel ancestor"? I will try to answer him.

On the one hand, the usual parallel ATA interface is enough for most hard drives and this interface suits most of users due to its prevalence.

But, on the other hand, this interface has significant disadvantages in the form of limited speed, and exposure to crosspads, which in turn can create some errors during data transmission, and, finally, the physical dimensions of the interface cables.

The new Serial ATA interface is designed to overcome the restrictions inherent in parallel interfaces, increase the speed and reliability of data transfer, and also significantly reduce the size of the cables, which is also important. The fundamental difference of these two interfaces is in the data transfer method. Parallel interfaces, how to output from the name, transmit data to several parallel streams, in contrast to serial (serial) interfaces, when using which data is transmitted by a single stream, due to which high speed and stability is ensured during data transmission.

Thus, the identical data exchange rate between hard disks exceeded 1.5 GB / s was theoretically. As a result, all of the above can be reduced to one thesis: "The future for Serial ATA, parallel interfaces are morally outdated."

Claimed characteristics

So, in front of us one of the most capacious hard drives at the speed of the spindle rotation 7200rpm.

Let's take a look at the manufacturer declared by the manufacturer:

All the characteristics of this hard disk Comply with modern requirements, the average search time is quite small, the volume of buffer is not much not much 8MB. Well, with the technical characteristics of this HDD is all right, let's see what the tests will be shown.

Testing

To assess the performance of this hard drive, the following set of programs was used:

HD TACH 2.61;
WinBench "99;
Futuremark PCMark 2002;
HDD Speed.

Testing was carried out by the machine next configuration:

CPU Intel Pentium. 4 2,4Ghz.
MSI 865PE NEO2 FIS2R motherboard, used SATA controller, implemented by the possibilities of the South Bridge Intel 865pe
Memory 2x256MB PC3200 Kingmax
System Hard Drive Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 40GB ST340016A

In addition to becoming already standard set Tests, I decided to use not so common utility HDD Speed \u200b\u200bfor its simplicity and accuracy of the results.

Actually, test results:

Testing
HD TACH - RANDOM ACCESS TIME	12.2 ms.
WinBench "99 - Disk Access Time	12.5 ms.
WinBench "99 - TRANSFER RATE	56.8 MB / s
PCMark2002.	1297 MARKS.
HDD Speed \u200b\u200b- Read	56.2 MB / s
HDD Speed \u200b\u200b- Write	56.4 MB / s

What do we tell test results? First of all, it should be noted a very greater transfer rate of this hard disk - almost in all tests it reaches 57 MB / s! During testing, there was practically no "sediment" graphics - the test hard drive worked with a high constant speed.

Conclusion

After a series of tests, I can safely say that Seagate engineers have worked for fame and released an excellent product! I note that seagate hard disks have always differed good quality execution and high speed of work, and this hard drive did not let me down in my expectations :)

Before us is a very fast HDD, having a truly giant capacity - 160GB, and if you are going to buy yourself a Hi-End system, this hard disk for you.

Seagate today is, perhaps, one of the most stable and predicted market participants on hard magnetic disks. And the most recognizable and, thus, the demanded brand of its products is "Barracuda" (Barracuda). Hard drives supplied under this brand are traditionally distinguished by high performance, low levels of working noise and vibrations, as well as extremely high reliability that has already become a corporate seagate product style. And let the range of hard drives from this company not so great as the nearest competitors, but the lineup Updated with enviable constancy.

So, in the Barracuda hard disk family, which appeared in 1999 and has become a kind of kind " business card"The company Seagate has already changed 7 generations, and since the summer of this year, the process of its update has begun until the 8th. And for the first time in the industry's history, generation changes occurs gradually, in the framework of the smooth accumulation of technological innovations in the latest models of the previous, 7th generation. . But more on that later.

Initially, the Seagate Barracuda hard drive family included high-performance hard drives with SCSI and Fiber Channel interfaces aimed at serious use in powerful workstations, disk arrays and supercomputers. However, the largest popularity of this series brought a line of relatively inexpensive Barracuda ATA discs with a spindle speed of 7200 revolutions per minute intended for use in ordinary desktop computers. The success of the first generations of Seagate Barracuda ATA discs in many respects was defined outstanding at that time the speed of linear reading along with an extremely low level of working noise, but gradually the technological level of competitors' products approached the level of the leader, and the fifth generation discs - Seagate Barracuda ATA V - turned out. Although Good good, but far from outstanding in its parameters. Apparently, therefore, Seagate, when issuing the next line of hard drives, went to its cardinal (including the designation system) update. So today the current line of desktop hard drives are Barracuda 7200.7 discs, based on 80 gigabyte plates and existing in several modifications: with the ATA parallel interface and serial ATA, as well as with 2 options for cache - 2 or 8 MB. The wheels with an 8 megabyte buffer have a size of 120, 160 and 200 GB, while the range of budget 2-megabytes is much wider - from 40 to 160 GB.

In the system of designations of the new hard drive from Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, the numbers 7200 characterize the speed of spindle rotation, and number 7 indicates the seventh generation of this series in the Barracud line. After the series number, the word "plus" can be located, meaning that the buffer of this disk has a size of 8 MB. In addition, certain information about the disk parameters can be removed from the cipher of the series the series consisting, as a rule, from 9-10 Latin letters and Arabic numbers. Marking of the overwhelming majority of 3.5 "seagate hard drives starts with St3 characters, after which 3 digits indicate the volume of the disk (for 120, 160 and 200 GB drives - in gigabytes, and for the others - in hundreds of megabytes). For a potential buyer, the real value It also has the last digit containing information about the size of the device buffer (in budget models with the 2 MB of 2 MB marking ends to 1 or 2, while more productive models with a buffer 8 MB are marked with numbers 3 or 6) and the working interface (recent letters And for the Ata-Interface or AS - for Serial ATA). And only the marking of the most modern Winchester of the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 series - models with a capacity of 200 GB, which is a transition model to a new one, 8 generation of "predatory fish", is slightly different from the above: ST3200822As (last Figure 2, although her size buffer is 8 MB).

Concerning external view Barracuda 7200.7 hard disk, then, compared to discs of previous generations, it practically did not change, except that the SEASHIELD branded protective cover disappeared, which closed the lower surface of the disk and protecting gentle electronics from external influences. Most likely, in such a way, the developers tried to improve the heat sink (and at the same time a little reduce the cost of the hard drive?).

In all its products, Seagate always tried to introduce maximum amount branded technological solutions, and the Barracuda 7200.7 hard drive family is no exception to the general rule. All drives of this line are equipped with engines on Softsonic sixth-generation liquid bearings, as well as a whole range of branded technologies under the general name of the 3D Defense System. It consists of three main components: Drive Defense, Data Defense and Diagnostic Defense:

Drive Defense, providing hard drive protection from external mechanical impacts, includes, in turn, branded protection against drum loads G-Force Protection, thanks to which seagate disks Interest in the off state short-term accelerations at shock to 350g (for 2 ms) in non-working state and up to 63g - in the working. Acceleration of greater duration when hitting very rare and because the threat of a disk, according to the company, do not bear. In addition, all Seagate production discs are supplied in a special seashell plastic packaging, which is much better than traditional antistatic packages, protects the drive from any impacts on it arising during the transportation process.

Data Defense includes a set of technologies aimed at improving the performance characteristics of the drives. This is Sams (Seagate "S ADVANCED MULTIDRIVE SYSTEM), which allows you to reduce the negative impact of rotation vibration effects when the operation of several drives placed in one package; heading mechanism after switching off Safe Sparing; as well as working in background mode CBDS Search and Remedy System (Continuous Background Defect Scanning).

Diagnostic Defense diagnostic system combines a set of branded diagnostic seatools utilities, improved self-diagnosis technology Enhanced S.M.A.R.T. - (Self-monitoring Analysis Reporting Technology), as well as the DLD utility (Drive Logging Diagnostics), which allows you to "capture" the non-stipped data in the critical case and save the corresponding entry about it in the log file for the subsequent study of the malfunction.

Separately, it is worth highlighting the SBT noise cancer system (Sound Barrier Technology), which provides a low noise level of the hard disk - only 25 dB in waiting mode, so the developers allowed themselves to disable the control mode of the disk acoustics (according to the information of the SEAGATE Automatic Acoustic Menegement Utility).

Even after the faded acquaintance with the seagate branded technologies, it is easy to see that most of them are aimed primarily on improving the reliability and comfort of the operation of hard drives. Therefore, it is not surprising that, unlike the first episodes of Barracud, who won universal recognition due to their highest performance, the Barracuda 7200.7 line discs do not claim leading positions in this aspect, and are, albeit is good, but only an average solution. However, the speed of reading, especially streaming data, they have traditionally high, which cannot be said about the recording speed.

Barracuda 7200.7 does not differ and especially hot "temperament" - even after a long work, its temperature does not exceed 45 degrees, which, of course, is not a record, but few of the modern "seven thousandnants" can boast that Barracuda exceeded this parameter.

But the relatively low performance of Barracuda 7200.7 hard drives is characterized only for models equipped with an obsolete parallel ata-interface, while the senior families with Serial ATA (or SATA / 150) serial interface and 8 megabyte buffer are noticeably superior to its atridges in all respects. But the seagate competitors are all the opposite, SATA drives albeit slightly, but inferior to their analogues. And the secret here is that Seagate today is the only major manufacturer of hard drives, which in SATS-hard drives uses a specially developed controller, and not an ordinary Ata controller with an adapter-bridge, with which hard disks "turn" from models with A parallel interface in the model with the SATA interface.

The current summer on the shelves of computer stores appeared a new flagship model "Barracuda" - Barracuda 7200.7 Plus ST3200822AS. This disk with the SATA and 8 MB buffer interface has only 2 plates with a total capacity of 200 GHz, i.e. He became the first hard disk in the industry, overcoming a 100 GB barrier on the plate. From a technical point of view, an increase in the capacity of the plate on 20 GB changed a little, however, an increased recording density, coupled with other technological innovations, had the most beneficial effect on the performance of this disk. Now he, according to the results of the first tests, firmly entered the leading position in the data rate of data, while retaining all the advantages of its predecessors (most importantly of which, no doubt, an extremely low noise level). And if in terms of recording speed, the difference with competitors is not very high, then by the speed of reading the separation has become very serious - the average read speed approaches 60 MB / s. Yes, some competitors' discs are able to show this reading speed, but only as peak, while our "hero" in the initial sectors has a peak reading speed exceeding 70 MB / s.

In this way, new model Seagate is not at all that Barracuda 7200.7, which before. By and large, it is a prototype of a newly announced new, eighth generation of "marine predators" - Barracuda 7200.8. The most significant differences of the novelties include the support of individual elements of the prospective interface Serial ATA II - NCQ technology (Native Command Queuing), which allows you to receive the sequence of commands for accessing the disk and "intellectually" to reorder their execution, optimizing the performance of the drive, as well as the possibility of "hot" Replacing drives. Actually, the absence of this very intellectuality and was charged in the guilt of all SATA-products of the first generation, because of which they could apply only to the place in the desktops, but not where the fast disk subsystem is required (for example, in database servers). Now the main disadvantage of SATA, compared to SCSI, it seems to be overcome, and the construction of not only economical, but also the high-performance disk subsystem on SATA-hard drives becomes quite real.

Like previous models of this series, Barracuda 7200.8 has a rotational speed of 7200 rpm; In addition to the SATA version, models with the ATA parallel interface will be released. The maximum amount of the novelty will be 400 GB (the series will also disks on 300 and 250 GB).

So, summarizing the foregoing, it can be concluded that seagate hard disks are traditionally distinguished by high quality performance and high speed. But, although the flagship models of the Barracuda series 7200.7 are quite able to qualify for leadership, the younger models of the series remains the darling of middle peasants, albeit good. By and large, there is nothing criminal in it and these discs are quite suitable for use in computers of the most different level. Moreover, not so long ago, Seagate realized, finally, all the shortness of reducing the warranty period at the ATA model of their hard drives from three to one year, committed last year ("for the company" with other manufacturers). Of particular reduction in the cost of warranty service, this decision of the company did not bring, but struck in its image quite sensitive. And quite recently, correcting this annoying misunderstanding, Seagate once again confirmed the title of the present leader of the hard drive industry, declaring the introduction of a 5-year warranty for all hard drives released after July 2004. And after all this, who can surprise the fact of the leading of the seagate barracuda hard drives in our popularity rating "TOP" 8 "? I will not be surprised.

Recently dragged the buddy such a device in non-working condition.

Any platform completely refused to run with him, giving out the symptoms of a short circuit of BP. That is, when you turn on the power on the computer starts for a moment and immediately turns off, while without hard drive starts normally. At another time, bitterly sighing, would run to the store for the new hard drive, but the toad lose information and the interest of suffering the dead hard drive took their own :) Below I will tell you how our experiments ended.

In my case there was a rather old IDE hard disk at 160 GB. Here is the type of "rear" if anyone is interested :)

Despite the fact that the disc is old, the solution of this problem described in the article is suitable for most SATA and IDE discs, regardless of the manufacturer and age.

So :) A little walking, came to the conclusion that the wines of the whole suppressor - a small black thing, according to the principle of work similar to the usual stabilion, but most often performing a protective function, in general, the semiconductor fuse. In the hard drive of their 2 pieces: 5V and 12V, and they are located, most often, next to the power connector, as shown in the picture below.

To determine which of the suppressors flew out (and whether it flew out), I took advantage of the ampermetter, in the commoner - "Tester". Any will fit, even Chinese :) For example, I have "C20" for a year older than me by age :))

Check our "fuses" as ordinary diodes. For those who have an idea of \u200b\u200bthe radio electronics too abstract, I will explain how it is done. We set the tester into the resistance measurement mode and adjust 0 when the probe is closed.

Suppressor, like the usual stabilion, in working condition should pass permanent current in one direction and only a certain level as in the picture below.

While punched suppressor shows a short circuit in both directions:

Here it is necessary for us! We take a soldering iron and mercilessly falling down (preferably remember which side it was soldered :)))

After that, trembling hands, in anticipation of a miracle, we connected the hard drive to the platform. And the miracle still happened :) Instead of death cramps, we heard the cheerful buzzing of coolers and saw a successful BIOS test, which indicated the performance of the hard drive :)

Finally, I will say that the Winchester will be quite normal and fully work without a suppressor. Just the next time, with meals, instead of the suppressor, the electronics of the hard drive can burn. Therefore, if you are going to use further this disk on the "full coil", then in order to protect yourself from losing information, I would advise you to find a new suppressor on the radio machine, or find an old hard drive and drop out of it (after checking the tester). We scored this case, because Our main mission was to get information with seemingly dead hard :)

Seagate inflicts the response of December last year Seagate announced a new generation of Barracuda 7200.7 hard drives, becoming the second manufacturer to reach the storage density of more than 50 gigabits per square inches. And the first, as you know, was Maxtor, an allegedly announced in September. What is interesting, the last two generations of seagate hard drives shares a little more than five months! For one reason or another, Seagate decided to force the events and as soon as possible prepared the following (after Barracuda ATA V) the generation of productive hard drives for desktop computers, reorganizing your model range.

With the cessation of SCSI class 7200RPM hard drives, BARRACUDA brand completely turned to ATA Winchesters, and therefore the need disappeared in the ATA console. A family of U Series was also eliminated, and the 5400RPM hard drives were attributed to the "Barracud" discharge, which led to the appearance of the "5400" and "7200" identifiers. Well, the generation number began to point the Arabic digit through the point. As a result, the generation of Wincuda ATA V is the name of the Barracuda ATA V name of Barracuda 7200.7.

The question arises: why after the fifth generation immediately goes seventh? No, this is not an error of marketers, Seagate has a really generation of desktop hard drives with a spindle speed of 7,200 rpm. Just the very first model of this class (by the way, the first not only for Seagate, but in general for the industry), announced in October 1997, was produced under the brand of Medalist Pro. By the way, it was the first hard drive with hydrodynamic bearings (FDB), which allowed us to combine the "server" rotation speed with an acceptable noise for home use.

Only a year and a half later, when competition arose and in this sector of the market (and all the manufacturers of hard drives willingly rushed to raise virgin), Seagate marketers visited the magnificent idea to take advantage of the Barracuda brand on the SCSI market and at the ATA market. The second generation of 7200RPM Winchesters Seagate, which appeared in June 1999, called Barracuda ATA.

In the future, Seagate adhered to an aggressive six-month change cycle of products. The third generation was seen in January 2000; Barracuda ATA II acquired an increased to two megabytes buffer and Ultra ATA / 66 interface. In September 2000, Barracuda ATA III came out, which could boast the third generation hydrodynamic bearings, more than twice the increased data recording density and Ultra ATA / 100 interface. Starting with this line, Seagate abandoned the release of 3 plated models. Once again, the storage density, and with her and the container of hard drives, doubled in June 2001, with the release of Barracuda ATA IV. This ruler was not so progressed in speed, as the previous one, but made a breakthrough in the area of \u200b\u200bnoise characteristics (to this day, after more than two years, it is one of the quietest hard drives). After that, a long calm has come. :)

Only a year later, in June 2002, Seagate prepared the replacement of this, undoubtedly one of the most successful lines of Winchesters. Barracuda ATA V again did not shine with high-speed characteristics, did not become another revelation in terms of silent, but it was expanded the range of Seagate products. So, Barracuda ATA V Plus acquired an increased to eight megabytes buffer, and also became the world's first Winchester with a Serial ATA interface. And now, after just five months, a new generation of hard drives is coming. Is Seagate return to the semi-annual change cycle of Linek?

I suspect that causing Maxtor actions became the cause of such a rush. However, you already know that the Announcement Maxtor turned out to be half paper, since only one model - 6E040L0 - immediately received such a tank plate. This is a senior disc from the budget line of Diamondmax Plus 8, therefore, he did not ask a special weather on the market. Everything turned out that hard drives with plates of 80GB from the two largest producers were on sale at about the same time, in February of this year. After some time, Seagate launched an offensive on all fronts, offering customers a choice of four different capacities, two buffer sizes and two interface varieties.

Nine

The new family of seagate hard disks is extensive, more than ever. It consists of already from nine (very iconic, it is necessary to notice, the number) massively issued models! In the next table you can see what they differ from each other:

For OEM customers, a much larger amount of models are available, in particular, the ST80013A model (80GB with an 8MB buffer and Ultra ATA interface), as well as seven variants of Serial ATA-Winchesters.

Starting with Barracuda ATA V, the model with 8MB buffer and the ATA interface receive the "Plus" console in the title.

To understand how good the new family, we have collected all nine officially produced models Barracuda 7200.7, adding the results of Barracuda Serial ATA V to compare. To improve the readability of the results, we will call the Winchesters as follows:

As you can see, the Winchesters came up with different versions of Firmware, which will allow us to compare versions of each other. And thanks so big set Winchesters, we can most objectively judge the performance of all options for the execution of Seagate Barracuda 7200.7. The fact is that it is often not quite "healthy" copies of hard drives that do not show the typical productivity of their family. With such a "cross-place", we are insured from these "randoms". In addition, when writing follow-up reviews, we will already know, the results of a particular model Barracuda 7200.7 are suitable for comparison with competitors' products, or it needs to be tested.

And now some details about the changes in Barracuda 7200.7.

What's new?

Tested by two generations "Barracud" The design of the hull moved by inheritance and to Barracuda 7200.7.

It is interesting to note that Seagate gradually replaces the grinded upper cover on a more suitable heat transfer theory matte.

Once again, the increased data storage density allowed for the information on one plate 80GB of information, therefore the container of the two-bedroom hard drive can no longer be addressed in standard LBA mode. In this regard, Seagate, following Maxtor, WD and IBM, introduced support for the LBA48 mode. You can read more about differences in addressing modes here.

According to unattended reasons, new barracuds do not support the acoustics already familiarly, although in the manual on the Serial ATA model, this feature is declared. Thus, you will not be able to make the Winchester work faster or quieter than he came from the factory. But, more surprisingly, Serial ATA BARRACUDA 7200.7 support UDMA6 data transfer mode, i.e. Create more than 100MB per second! True, express testing has shown that today the only Serial ATA controller that allows you to achieve such speeds is the ICH5 controller.

Interested in such an unexpected ability of new items, we have taken a thorough study of the component base of the Winchesters, the benefit of the electronics board is not closed, as before, the metal plate.

Electronics on ATA and Serial Ata Barracuda 7200.7 completely different. The first uses the processor 10252820 production of AGERE or STMicroelectronics (which is interesting, the two of these manufacturers are manufactured for seagate the same processors!), In the second - 10258581. Carefully closingly, we will find that the electronics changed little compared to Barracuda ATA V.

True, in the previous generation, processors 10226836 and 10238949 for ATA and SATA models were used, respectively. And in those and in others, 16-bit SDRAM chips are used with a sample time of 6ns, which indicates a potentially possible exchange rate in 333MB / s. Interesting whether the difference between Barracuda ATA V and 7200.7 will be great?

Test platform and testing technique

The composition of the test system:

motherboard - Asustek P3B-F;
processor - Intel P3 600E;
memory - 2 * 128MB SDRAM HYUNDAI PC100 ECC;
winchester - IBM DPTA 372050;
video card - MATROX MILLENNIUM 4MB;
PROMISE ULTRA100 TX2;
Promise SATA 150 TX2;
operating system - Windows 2000 Professional SP4.

The following versions of test programs were used:

WinBench 99 2.0
IOMETER 1999.10.20
FC-Test v0.5.3

All hard drives that have the ability to select "Quiet Seek / Normal See" operation modes, tested in "fast" mode, switching was carried out using Hitachi Feature Tool. For tests in WinBench, the hard drives were placed in FAT32 and NTFS in one partition with the default cluster size, Paragon Partition Manager program was used to mark the disks in FAT32. Tests were held seven times, the maximum result was taken into account. Winchesters between tests were not cooled. Testing in IOMETER was conducted on the patterns of Sequentialread, SequentialWrite, Database, Workstation, Fileserver and WebServer. Per detailed descriptions Patterns you can refer to our previous materials.

Access time tests and read / write speed

Let's start with a simple ability to read consistently. It's funny, but in this uncomplicated, it would seem, the test of us already waited for a para-tripogo surprises. See for yourself:

First of all, the essential lag of Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA is thrown when working with small data blocks. What is interesting, Barracuda Serial ATA V did not suffer such a paradise and coped with reading no worse than its ATA fellow.
The second surprise is the lagging ATA models of the capacity of 160GB from less cream models. They are approximately equal to a block in 4kb, but then the older models with the ATA interface slow down (in the diagram it is a red schedule), and everyone else is not. The only explanation I find is more slow work in 48-bit addressing mode. By the way, Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA does not have anything like that, and the models of different containers showed almost identical results.

With a serial recording, hard drives with different Firmware show different results. And again, we see the strict "individuality" of Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA - its schedule does not like the rest. She has better results on blocks more than 8kb, and in smaller blocks, Barracuda Serial ATA V is leading. The results of the Firmware version 3.04 are now highlighted - they are noticeably lower than it is supposed. In the firmware 3.06 and 3.54, this trouble has already been corrected.

The maximum speed of BARRACUDA 7200.7 by more than 30% exceeds the rate of Barracuda ATA V, which exactly corresponds to the growth of the data recording density. However, if we look into the specification, we will see a very strange thing. The declared longitudinal density of the Specifications has increased only by 9%, and the rest of the capacity is achieved by increasing the density of the tracks! The documentation clearly shows incorrect data. By the way, all this little resembles the times of Barracuda ATA III - it also very much exceeded the previous generation in the "raw" read / write speeds.

Let us turn to the comparing average access time. Read / writing is carried out by 8kb blocks with random addresses (actually, these are special cases of the Database pattern).

What do we see here? And we see the trend. The average access time shown by winechesters is in strict dependence on their "steep". The cheapest models have the most poor access time, the equipment buffer in 8MB slightly improves the situation, but just incredible things are demonstrated by Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA! Their access time was better than that of the model of the last generation with the "trimmed" plates (you can learn about the influence of such "trimming" here)! The difference between ATA and SERIAL BARRACUDA 7200.7 is 2 milliseconds, i.e. More than 15%!
We have long tried to find explanations to this fact. As you, probably, remember, we recently dealt with a similar phenomenon at Western Digital and came to interesting conclusions. However, the graphics of the surface of today's participants are the same within the error, therefore hypotheses about the different number of servometers (more precisely, the identifiers of sectors, SIDs) or a different frequency of rotation disappear. There are not so many options:

Barracuda 7200.7 does not have the ability to control acoustics (AAM), so it is unknown, in a quiet or quick mode they work. For more expensive Serial ATA options intended for serious workstations, Seagate may include quick search, and for "civilian" models - quiet.
For SATA disks Barracuda 7200.7 Probably use of a more powerful actuator for the reasons described in the previous paragraph.
Firmware algorithms can affect the average access time. True, 2 ms is still too much.

We checked the first hypothesis for rumor. Serial ATA Barracuda 7200.7 search sound is much more heard than at ATA fellow. And U. last sound More "dusty" and "ringing", whereas the Serial ATA version is "thick" and "energetic", which resembles the thunder of QUANTUM :) thunder. This fact may confirm the second hypothesis. Well, the hypothesis about the influence of Firmware did not receive confirmation.
Which of the hypotheses do you like more? In our opinion, both described methods have made its contribution to the positioning speed of Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA, since the average access time is simply excellent and currently inferior only to IBM / Hitachi products, and then quite a bit.

With a random recording between ATA and Serial ATA variants of Barracuda 7200.7 runs the whole abyss, and the results of Barracuda Serial ATA V were even better. Once again, when compared with the ancestor, we see that Barracuda 7200.7 still has where to grow.

Since all modern hard drives cache write requests and implement a "background" record, the average access time when recording allows us to judge the effectiveness of the deferred recording algorithms. By dividing the average access time when reading for the average access time when recording, we obtain the efficiency factor:

A clear system continues to be observed - Winchesters again distributed strictly by groups. With a noticeable margin leads the previous generation of Barracuda, which has shown quite well (compared to the products of competitors) the effectiveness of a deferred entry. But Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 in this case there is nothing to boast; If Serial ATA options are tolerant, then the "classic" options have a complete failure, and even a large buffer size does not save the situation.
IN sAMSUNG review PL40 We have already mentioned the strange feature of Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, when some tests contradict others. Despite the low indicators in this IOMETER test, they show good results in the SoundForge test from WinBench 99, which is also critical to the hard drive's abilities to produce a postponed entry. What is the contradiction?

Of course, we do not know exact answer, but dare to assume that the whole thing is in the nature of appeals to the Winchester. As our research shows, the last generations of Seagate Barracuda do not have optimizations for multiple competitive reading streams and do not cache read data. In other words, after reading a data block and passing it into a computer, Seagate hard drives immediately forget about it. This leads to the fact that any inconsistent appeals to the data interrupt the process of proactive reading at the previous address. No multiple segmentation (although it is declared in the description), the hard drive copes well only with reading one data stream. If we assume that the same picture is observed and when recording (to check this assumption, we have not had time yet), then everything becomes in its place.

In the SoundForge access to the disk is more or less linear, and in IOMETER - is completely random, respectively, in the first case, the postponement is operating, and in the second, the constant "reassection" of the buffer occurs. Do I need to explain what it is fraught with? With an increase in data fragmentation, the productivity of the disk will decline rapidly.

Analysis of the results different versions The Firmware at ATA variants of Barracuda 7200.7 suggests that the differences between them are minimal.

IOMEter, Database Pattern

The Database special pattern allows you to study the features of Firmware Winchesters. The size of the requests is 8kb, to evaluate the abilities of Firmware to the combination of read / write, the ratio of reading operations to record changes from 0 to 100%. Unit of measurement - operation per second.

All Barracuda have smooth graphs, without bursts and dawns, but in the behavior of the winchesters there is a big difference. If Serial ATA is very "loyal" to the record, then ATA options to it are indifferent. Barracuda Serial ATA V is most effectively coping with the reading and writing combination, the new generation in the face of Barracuda 7200.7 is far behind it.

Now the Database results in another context.

With scalability by load from Seagate no problems, the behavior of all hard drives can be considered identical.

Mixed modes, as already mentioned, new models are given worse than the predecessor. Serial Ata Barracuda is more than 20% faster than its Parallel ATA fellow.

With 100% recording, the picture has changed even stronger: Barracuda Serial ATA V confidently ahead of his young relatives.

Yes, the first tests brought very unexpected results. Despite the fact that the Barracuda 7200.7 electronics is very similar to the Barracuda ATA V electronics, in almost all the characteristics the latter is noticeably better. Very much increased linear speed (It should be noted that lately This is the first case when the read / write speed has increased exactly as much as the storage density has increased!) And improving the average access time, Seagate also worsened the other quality of the hard drive. Sad. :(

IOMETER, Workstation, Fileserver and WebServer patterns

After studying the behavior of Winchesters in the Database pattern, the remaining patterns do not bring any surprises.

In the pattern, imitating workstation, with a huge margin lead the Serial ATA model. The Barracuda 7200.7 Plus is a very small effect on the result.

For a file server, again, a much preferable SATA model, and an enlarged buffer size does not resolutely no effect on performance.

And in a classic web server, due to the lack of recording operations, almost everything depends on the speed of data search. Small rating fluctuations at the bottom of the diagram are most likely random factors.

WinBench.

With the help of ZD WINBENCH 99, we can evaluate the speed of the hard drives in some of the characteristic applications. Despite the fact that these applications themselves are already outdated, and the volumes of data that are tested by Winchesters, in modern standards are small, in WinBench results still have something to see.

First, comparable hard drives on the FAT32 file system.

In Business Winmark, Winchesters shot very dormitory, their results were distributed exactly according to subgroups. Increased buffer size gives a sensitive productivity increase. The advantage of Barracuda 7200.7 Plus over Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA is most likely due to differences in the ProMise Ultra133 / TX2 and SATA150 / TX2 controller drivers.

High-End Winmark showed a slightly different picture. The previous generation in the face of Barracuda SATA V rolls almost at the last place, and the gain of performance from the increase in buffer size is 9% - growth, to put it mildly, is low. Let's analyze discrete results.

Funny. In AVS, the valvester indicators formed a rather neat ladder, but the separation into groups was preserved. Apparently, the game comes in many different factors. ATA ahead Winchester with 8MB buffer, their advantage over models with a buffer of 2MB comes to 18%. Serial Ata Barracuda two generations showing very close results, which once again confirms the small influence of the "raw" speed (data exchange rates with plates) on the "working" productivity of modern hard drives.

For FrontPage, the buffer size is not important. In general, it is generally difficult to identify at least some trends - it is rather the test of controllers, not hard drives.

MicroStation showed a noticeable advantage of ATA models with an 8MB buffer. They bypassed "two-legabid" conifers by more than 22%. Serial ATA models are located approximately in the middle between them.

But for Photoshop, the most important characteristics are the physical data of the Winchesters - the models with the smallest average access time, and Barracuda V lost due to a low data exchange rate with plates.

Another product from Adobe also highly depends on the read / write speeds, although the size of the buffer also had some influence on the result.

Apparently, the results in SoundForge are largely determined by how "lying" stars in the sky. At least, I can not intelligibly explain the 20% difference between almost the same Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA. Nevertheless, we can state the victory of Serial ATA Winchesters and serious, about 20%, the advantage of Barracuda 7200.7 Plus over models with 2MB buffer.

And the final test Visual C ++ "spoke" is quite clear: Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA barely surpasses Barracuda 7200.7 Plus, which, in turn, overtook their analogues with a smaller buffer size. The previous generation is not in the last place.

Let us turn to the more advanced file system NTFS.

On NTFS, High-End Winmark results have become more systematic, and Serial ATA Winchesters have now pushed their ATA relatives. Especially distinguished the previous model Barracuda, which was able to improve the indicators in all applications and even defeat in two subtests (Business Winmark and FrontPage).

Net victory Serial ATA! Judging by how the results of two generations of Barracuda tightly easily, it is the merit of the controller, and not the hard drives themselves. Be that as it may, only Winchesters with 2MB buffers were noticeably weaker.

Another victory Serial ATA.

At the price of incredible efforts ATA generation retains leadership in this test. If it were not for the heroic performance of the ST120026A model, in the Barracuda Serial ATA V piggy bank would be recorded another victory. :)

In Photoshop, the situation has changed little compared to FAT32. Serial ATA still leads, except that, in general, the results have become slimmer.

The same thing happened in Premiere - a clear system is traced. Serial ATA Winchester only for percent units lost ATA analogs with an 8B buffer. As with FAT32, in both products from Adobe Barracuda ATA V loses Barracuda 7200.7, apparently due to the low speed of read / write speed.

On NTFS, SoundForge results have become slightly less confusing. What is interesting, except for Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA at 80GB, all the hard drives are located almost at the same places as on FAT32! It turns out that the Sound Forge still has a system, but I cannot comprehend it :).

With the exception of the unsuccessful performance of Barracuda 7200.7 Plus 80GB, everything remained the same as on FAT32. Serial ATA Winchester demonstrate persistent superiority.

Let's summarize the results:

Definitely Serial ATA SEAGATE Winchesters and / or Serial ATA Promise Controllers are more optimized by the NTFS File System.
WinBench obviously favored hard drives of greater tank. At the very least, the results of the model 40GB were often noticeably worse than more capacious. True, it is possible that the Firmware version 3.06 is optimized under the volume of the 8MB buffer and with 2MB works worse than 3.04.
Almost always among the Winchesters with 2MB buffer won the model with Firmware 3.54.
Most often 120GB model won. Here it is optimal for Barracuda 7200.7 sintering. :)

FC-TEST.

Recently, hard drive manufacturers pay the time more and more attention to streaming operations, the type of which is copying files. We test copying on five different sets of files using a specially written program. The results of FC-TEST are almost always indicative, let's see which it will reveal the differences between today's participants.

The first thing on the disk creates files. According to the results of this procedure, we can judge the recording speed provided by the Winchester. Since the alignment of participants on the "podium" for both file Systems It turned out to be the same, only one diagram is given.

It should be noted, it is interesting! Excellence 8MB buffer over 2MB is not a surprise, but Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA turned out to be much faster than even Barracuda 7200.7 Plus! And almost not inferior to the last Barracuda Serial ATA V, despite the low rate of exchange with the plate! The advantage of Serial ATA Winchesters in the deferred recording test IOMETER found its reflection in the FC-TEST.

With ordinary reading files, Firmware features and the volume of buffers are usually a little affect the result that defines the factors is the physical read speed for big files and the speed of electronics for small.

It so happened this time: all the hard drives are based on the same plates, so there is only a difference in the results in mixed patterns, where the average file size is not large and not small. In such patterns (namely, Install and MP3), Serial ATA Winchesters lose classic ATA. However, this is not surprising, if you remember the results of the iOMter test: Sequential Read for small blocks.

However, the NTFS Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA was almost completely rehabilitated. Again, we see the sharpening of the hard drives and / or the controller under the professional file system.

Go to sweet, namely copying. To begin with, we will copy files within one partition.

As expected, Serial ATA Winchester has implemented their advantage in the form of a more efficient postponed record. However, the superiority of Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA is very small here, but a larger buffer size provided Barracuda 7200.7 plus more than 30% increase in copy speed. Despite the smaller physical speed, Barracuda Serial ATA V is easily bypassed Barracuda 7200.7 with 2MB buffer!

When copying to the adjacent partition, the effect of data search speed increases, so the advantage of Barracuda Serial ATA increases. But their successes are rejected again when comparing hard drives with different buffer size. This time the enlarged buffer allowed to increase the speed of copying by more than 50%!

If you remember, the results of the IOMETER tests showed that Barracuda 7200.7 is not always different from Barracuda ATA V for the better. In some modes, the Barracuda Serial ATA V disc is somewhat ahead of Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA, despite the advantage of the latter in the speeds of read / write and positioning the heads. From which it can be assumed that in Barracuda 7200.7 there were no developments in the field of Firmware algorithms, which arose in the process of "tuning" Barracuda ATA V.

Apparently, this did not allow a novelty to noticeably overtake the predecessor in some real tasks, for example in copying. It remains to hope that the situation is correctly programmatically, by updating Firmware. By the way about Firmware. On the ATA versions of Barracuda 7200.7, the firmware 3.06 showed itself well, version 3.54 has proven well.

Verdict

Now that you have learned tightly with the speed characteristics of the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 family of hard disks, I can only share subjective impressions.

It should be noted that this line of Seagate no longer has the revolutionary pecklessness that Barracuda ATA IV possessed. As the sound of rotation and the sound of positioning has become more heard, and it is difficult for me to judge the causes. Nevertheless, Barracuda 7200.7 is by no means inferior in terms of noise to competitors, with the exception, perhaps its serial ATA options. But there is nothing surprising in this - such a quick search cannot be sick. A little sadness is the lack of ability to manage search acoustics.

About the heating of modern high-breasted hard drives can not say anything new. If the Barracuda 7200.7 single-poxtual models remain when working a little warm, then more capacious options are already preferably cooled. Of course, they do not heat as irons, but even the non-ventilation of the hull will significantly reduce the risk of loss of the inhabited hardware and precious information.

Initially, after acquaintance with the first copies of Barracuda 7200.7, I was about them a very impartial opinion. Their performance left much to be desired, the reliability was very dubious, and silent is not outstanding. In the course of writing this review, I did not cease to be surprised that I saw. The strongest, of course, impressed the average access time from Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA. In addition, their more advanced Firmware (in particular, having a good effectiveness of a postponed record) makes it suggest that the ATA and SATA models work different teams Developers - Winchesters turned out so different. Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA clearly justifies its higher price, being an excellent candidate for a place in a serious computer.

As for the "classic" Barracuda 7200.7, then at the moment it is just decent hard drives. From the moment they are released by Seagate, Firmware finalized to pull the performance to the level of competitors. She was more or less, but Winchester still remained, which is called "without a raisin."

P.S. When the work on the review was complete, we had a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA with the new version of Firmware. Her results again forced us to be surprised. Stay with us. ;)