Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB Hard Drive

**Doctor Feelgood**

Years ago I never imagined I would â€œneedâ€ a terabyte of storage. Fast forward to today with the explosion of digital media and it is easy to justify such a need. Once you do acquire such a large drive you may worry about reliability, as 1TB of data is a lot to lose. Today we will test the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB hard drive in terms of speed, reliability, and value.

zachig · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 313

Thanks for a GREAT review, Jason!

I personally own only WD Hard-Drives at the moment (2x250GB in my Main rig and 1x500GB in my HTPC), but I used to own Seagate Hard-Drives in the past and they never let me down.

With the space on my 500GB HD in my HTPC getting lower and lower, I might be getting a 1TB HD soon and I might get a Seagate one. Smile

Thanks again for the review... Wave

slugbug · Rated XXX Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Posts: 772 Location: Canada

My first PC back in '95 came with a 1GB hard drive. I would have never thought back then that todays PC's would need drives thousands of times that large.

zachig · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 313

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

LOL I remember my first computer....was nothing but a box with a bunch of switches and lights. Had to flip them in the right sequence to run things LOL Yea, I know I'm dating myself...I quickly stepped up to a much more powerful computer that included a TAPE drive! WOHOOO! I was loving it when cartridges and floppies came out Smile

acruxksa · Posted: Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:10:13 Post Subject:

Would that be the Antikythera device Hellfire?

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Kythera.htm

Laughing

zachig · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 313

Browser · Rated PG Joined: 08 Apr 2009 Posts: 1

I'm sorry but I don't think the review is very good, they way it was done (benchmarks etc) was fine but I have a problem with it going on about "competition".

The only so called "competition" is an older Seagate HDD and a possibly even older Maxtor who is owned by Seagate. Every drive basically being from Seagate with 1 new model "competing" against older models and the result of the newer one beating the so called competition by x%, well lets just say some would wonder if this is a sponsored review.

First of all comparing a new hard drive against ones so old what do you expect, I sure wouldn't expect any competition there, infact if there was the new drive would have to be bad. Also seeing how a single new drive compares to older models, which are not competitors to it, is rather useless unless it's some kind of retrospect to see how something has changed.

I don't think there's anything wrong with how you reviewed the drives, but it is useless to any buyer wanting to buy a new hard drive considering this drive or one of it's actual competitors, such as from Samsung, Toshiba, Western Digital etc.. Then you could compare how the reviewed drive uses about twice as much power as a WD Green 1TB (WD10EADS) for example (going on product specs anyway), other advantages/disadvantages...

You also mentioned you would test it's reliability, well the only page which even mentions reliable is the first where you say it's important and you're going to test it. I apologise if I missed it but how did you test this, what stress tests did you put it through, constant use, temperature tolerance etc?

Just for the record I'm not anti Seagate, infact all of my drives for about a decade have been Seagate, untill the recent 7200.11 fiasco with their drives failing left and right where I replaced a faulty Seagate 1TB with a Western Digital 1TB.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:36:58 Post Subject:

I'll agree with you on your two main points.

On the competition... It was rather weak on this one, but on occasion that does happen here and elsewhere (with some other places opting for no reference items during tests). While it would be great if all the reviewers were able to have at least one of each of the latest and greatest products from every manufacturer, that probably won't happen in my life time. It does make me aware that a more in depth check of what the possible competition is with any given reviewer might be necessary. One thing the review can provide is some insight in to the performance boost one might expect when looking to upgrade a system that may have been running a drive for the past 2-3 years.

As for the reliability... that is an aspect of the review that got past my 'review'. Even with a slew of stress tests, it is hard to accurately gauge the reliability of any product in just a few weeks. While some more things might have been done to better back up that claim, a few years use might be the best test. The review might just be better off without that part.

As for the 'sponsored review' jab... All I have to say is that has never happened, and never will.

Thanks.

acruxksa · Posted: Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:18:51 Post Subject:

The biggest thing I took away from this review is that these are 7200.12 drives, not 7200.11 drives and should not exhibit the issue seagate had with the previous revisions. Time will tell off course, but I'm confident the reviewer will check back in if reliability issues present themselves.

Although the comparison isn't against it's direct competition, the numbers are still relevant and can be used to verify that the drive performs as claimed by the manufacturer. They can also be applied loosely to other reviews on the net. Granted the large variation in test systems make it nearly impossible to directly compare the numbers to other reviews, it still gives you an idea what to expect and can serve to either re-enforce other benchmark data or cast a light on inconsistencies that may arise.

I would also like to add that I've contributed a couple reviews to BB.com and have never felt pressured or influenced to produce favorable or unfavorable reviews.