Did I make a mistake buying the Seagate SATA Barracuda V?

[Swanny]

Hello all,

Yesterday I make a big order to almost completely upgrade my PC. For the hard drive I decided to get the Seagate Barracuda V SATA 80Gb. I was planning on getting a WD Special Edition 120Gb, but the Seagate was cheaper (a few dollars), (hopefully) faster, and I didn't need the extra capacity. Today I read Anand's review of the Maxtor Raptor HD, in which the Barracuda V SATA was a participant. I noticed that it scored worse than the WD in most of the tests.

Have I made a mistake jumping on this SATA drive when I saw it in stock and at a good price? Or will it actually outperform a PATA drive like the WD SE?



Thanks,
Swan

 

[GT1999]

SATA itself doesn't make all that much of a difference with the current drives on the market. The drives themselves are the determining factor.

Currently the 1200JB seems to be the champ (from my glimps at the tests), but personally, I think you made a great choice. Seagate's current 'Cuda drives are very reliable from my experience, and also very quiet, which I think is a very important part of a computer system.

Keep the drive.

 

[Jayczar]

I agree all of my Seagate's are nice and quiet, keep it.

 

[LeeTJ]

there is no statistical difference in performance between the SATA and the PATA versions of any particular drive.

keep the sata cuda. u'll like it. now if you can just get rid of the ide cables for ur optical drives.

 

[McCarthy]

It's a good quiet drive, you'll enjoy it.

 

[zephyrprime]

Comparing the barracuda to the raptor is not a fair contest at all! The raptor is 1000rpm and more expensive than 7200rpm drives.

 

[mechBgon]

The Seagate 7200.7 is on the way too, keep your eyes peeled. It features higher STR maxing around 60Mb/sec, according to one early adopter here. Seek times are high but maybe they can be tweaked somewhat by disabling Auto Acoustic Management.

 

[jaeger66]

SATA is limited by platter speeds, and is NOT any faster than PATA at this point. It took years to beat it into people's heads that ATA66/100/133 is irrelevant and now it's all going to start again with the 150MB/s SATA thing.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
The Seagate 7200.7 is on the way too, keep your eyes peeled. It features higher STR maxing around 60Mb/sec, according to one early adopter here. Seek times are high but maybe they can be tweaked somewhat by disabling Auto Acoustic Management.

Yep, and they are already available. However, they are louder than the V.

However, I prefer using my Seagate V with acoustic management turned on. My WD 1200 120 GB is too loud for my tastes. And my 60GXP is completely intolerable.

My fave drive is still the Seagate IV though. SILENT. Too bad it doesn't come in sizes beyond 80 GB though.

 

[Hagen]

Would be interested to hear what your observations are. From the reviews, the only advantage I can see immediately is just the fact that you will have the smaller serial cable instead of the parallel cable. I've got the Barracuda IV and love it, it's incredibly silent, and my tower/hard drive is right on top of my desk virtually at ear level. I imagine the Barracuda V is even a bit quieter, and I don't think you can really lose. My mobo supports SATA, but I'm not gonna rush out and buy an new hard drive now. You also will have the advantage of freeing up your primary ide connector, so if you have 2 optical drives you can islolate each one on its own channel. I've got a Promise RAID chip on my board, although I've got only one HD, I connected it to the RAID connector, now I've got my CD-ROM on the secondary channel and CD Burner on the primary channel, I have noticed a bit of difference in performance copying and burning CD's. Keep us posted on the new HD.
Cheers,
Hagen

 

[sharkeeper]

However, I prefer using my Seagate V with acoustic management turned on. My WD 1200 120 GB is too loud for my tastes. And my 60GXP is completely intolerable.

Damn! Do you sleep with those drives under your pillow?

Cheers!

 

[RichieZ]

Keep it, I replaced my 1000JB w/ a Barracuda V and I'm happy with it

 

[wetcat007]

Originally posted by: RichieZ
Keep it, I replaced my 1000JB w/ a Barracuda V and I'm happy with it

I'm doing the same to relieve myself of noise headaches, performance is no good if u cant stand being near ur computer.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

You probably wotn notice the performance differences, but in a year you'll be glad you bought a SATA drive instead of a PATA one.