Seagate Intros Barracuda Green 5900.3 Series 1.5 TB and 2 TB SATA 6 Gb/s Hard Drives

[btarunr]

Seagate introduced new Barracuda Green 5900.3 series high-capacity, energy-efficient hard drive models, in capacities of 1.5 TB and 2 TB. As the name suggests, these drives have spindle speeds of 5900 RPM (which is where the energy efficiency comes from), other specifications include 4K sector size (Advanced Format), 64 MB cache, and SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The Seagate Barracuda Green 5900.3 is priced at US $118.9 for the 1.5 TB model, and $149.99 for the 2 TB model.

[persona]

Interesting product. How many platters will have the 2 TB model? And the 1.5 TB one? Thank you.

[mav2000]

Why would you need sata 6 gbps for a slower HDD. Even the 7200 series cant use the full width offered by sata II

[n-ster]

Originally Posted by persona

Interesting product. How many platters will have the 2 TB model? And the 1.5 TB one? Thank you.

probably 4 and 3 respectively

Originally Posted by mav2000

Why would you need sata 6 gbps for a slower HDD. Even the 7200 series cant use the full width offered by sata II

marketing, facilitate transfer from SATA II to SATA III standard, differentiate from the competiton, better burst speeds

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by mav2000

Why would you need sata 6 gbps for a slower HDD. Even the 7200 series cant use the full width offered by sata II

Higher buffer to host speeds.



^ That's the buffered read speed of my old 500GB Seagate 7200.12

[persona]

Originally Posted by n-ster

probably 4 and 3 respectively

I hoped they had used platters of 750 GB for the 1.5 TB one:/ If I am not wrong the new WD green of 3 TB uses 750 GB platters. I would really like to see Seagate launching a new Barracuda 7200.13 with better preformance, silent, not too expensive, and with only one platter. I know maybe I'm asking a lot, but I hope I will not have to wait too much!

[Maban]

From the datasheet, they both use 3 platters. 667GB for the 2TB and 500GB for the 1.5TB. They have done away with the digit in the model number that says amount of platters. New scheme is ST2000DL003 and ST1500DL003.

Have to comment on your avatar persona, I love the Trinity movies.

[persona]

Originally Posted by Maban

From the datasheet, they both use 3 platters. 667GB for the 2TB and 500GB for the 1.5TB. They have done away with the digit in the model number that says amount of platters. New scheme is ST2000DL003 and ST1500DL003.

Have to comment on your avatar persona, I love the Trinity movies.

Ok, 3 platters are better than 4!
Thank you Maban! I didn't know Bud Spencer and Terence Hill were known outside of Italy Great films!

[newtekie1]

Kind of pricey considering the 2TB Green drive available right now is $100, and was just $70 last week on sale at newegg. The 64MB of cache is probably going to help speeds out a little, but for large data storage, which is what these are designed to do, it isn't really going to help all that much. And SATA 6Gb/s is pretty much wasted on these drives. So I don't see anything that really warrants 50-100% higher prices other than some clever marketting.

[Maban]

Saw the bar scene on a Sprint commercial back in 2006 and and bought the movies shortly after. Two of the greatest movies ever made.

Looking forward to these drives. Nice to finally see real competition to the WD EARS and EZRS drives.

[HillBeast]

So it's a WD Green *cough* I mean Barracuda Green. It's good they are making a green drive, but why has it taken them this long? The market for a quiet and low power 3.5" drive has been there for a while. In fact it's the market I buy from.

Lets hope Seagate make these drives, not Maxtor like all the recent other Seagate hardware. Ugh.

[kikicoco1334]

i dont' like any of those green hdds.... never really have good exp with them...
most the ones i ever used have failed me with in a year....

that's just WD tho...
it's hdd how much energy will a hdd use for the love of god!
i got 7 1.5s in my system and they run GREAT!

[Rado D]

Originally Posted by persona

Thank you Maban! I didn't know Bud Spencer and Terence Hill were known outside of Italy Great films!

Are you kidding man??? Im originally from Slovakia and we loved em fat man and pretty boy and Im pretty sure that in any surrounding countries too..they were extremely popular in 80's and 90'

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by HillBeast

So it's a WD Green *cough* I mean Barracuda Green. It's good they are making a green drive, but why has it taken them this long? The market for a quiet and low power 3.5" drive has been there for a while. In fact it's the market I buy from.

Seagate has had Green drives for just about as long as WD has, in fact this is the 3rd generation of them. They were called Barracuda LP before this.

Originally Posted by HillBeast

Lets hope Seagate make these drives, not Maxtor like all the recent other Seagate hardware. Ugh.

I thought Seagate shut down the Maxtor manufacturing plants very quickly after they took over the company.

In fact I'm sort of confused all around by your post. You say the market you buy from is the low power 3.5" drives, yet you didn't know Seagate has had these 5900RPM 3.5" low power drives on the market for almost 2 years now. You say Maxtor is making recent Seagate hardware, but I haven't seen any evidence that anything Maxtor is still in existance.

[HillBeast]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

In fact I'm sort of confused all around by your post. You say the market you buy from is the low power 3.5" drives, yet you didn't know Seagate has had these 5900RPM 3.5" low power drives on the market for almost 2 years now.

I haven't seen ANY low power Seagate drives. The only low power drives are SSDs and WD Greens. I guess they don't sell them in my country.

Originally Posted by newtekie1

You say Maxtor is making recent Seagate hardware, but I haven't seen any evidence that anything Maxtor is still in existance.

Ugh. You don't get it do you. I mean Seagates quality has gone seriously downhill since they bought Maxtor. I used to buy Seagate drives all the time and I could drop them, throw them at peoples faces, anything, and they'd still work alright.

Newer Seagate drives are terrible. All I did was plug it in and the SATA connector snapped. I wasn't even using excessive force or anything. It was just normal force. Then there is the noises they start making after owning them for a mere 6 months, and they have been stationary the whole time and treated with utter care.

In the past 2 years, I have had 2 80GB IDE 2.5" drives die, 1 1TB drive is developing bad sectors, an external 1TB DOA, then it's replacement was dying minutes after turning it on, a 500GB has a broken SATA connector, an 80GB SATA 3.5" died one day, and I have another 1TB on it's way out.

Seriously, either I have the worst luck or Seagate needs to really sort their stuff out. I have several WD drives now and they have been dropped and one even had water put on it accidentally and it is still running fine.

Maxtor had the worst build quality out of anything made by mankind, and it has now tainted Seagate. That is what I mean when I say 'I hope they are made by Seagate, not Maxtor like all their recent drives'.

[micropage7]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Kind of pricey considering the 2TB Green drive available right now is $100, and was just $70 last week on sale at newegg. The 64MB of cache is probably going to help speeds out a little, but for large data storage, which is what these are designed to do, it isn't really going to help all that much. And SATA 6Gb/s is pretty much wasted on these drives. So I don't see anything that really warrants 50-100% higher prices other than some clever marketting.

2 tera just about $100? if we calculate thats kinda cheap, since several years ago i bought 160 gig about $60
big cache helps much when the system run so it will let the head and the platter "take a rest" for a while

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by HillBeast

I haven't seen ANY low power Seagate drives. The only low power drives are SSDs and WD Greens. I guess they don't sell them in my country.

Well they exist, they've been out for 2 years now, as I said. And these are the 3rd generation. This news isn't announcing a new product, it is announcing a new generation of an old product.

Originally Posted by HillBeast

Ugh. You don't get it do you. I mean Seagates quality has gone seriously downhill since they bought Maxtor. I used to buy Seagate drives all the time and I could drop them, throw them at peoples faces, anything, and they'd still work alright.

Newer Seagate drives are terrible. All I did was plug it in and the SATA connector snapped. I wasn't even using excessive force or anything. It was just normal force. Then there is the noises they start making after owning them for a mere 6 months, and they have been stationary the whole time and treated with utter care.

In the past 2 years, I have had 2 80GB IDE 2.5" drives die, 1 1TB drive is developing bad sectors, an external 1TB DOA, then it's replacement was dying minutes after turning it on, a 500GB has a broken SATA connector, an 80GB SATA 3.5" died one day, and I have another 1TB on it's way out.

Seriously, either I have the worst luck or Seagate needs to really sort their stuff out. I have several WD drives now and they have been dropped and one even had water put on it accidentally and it is still running fine.

Maxtor had the worst build quality out of anything made by mankind, and it has now tainted Seagate. That is what I mean when I say 'I hope they are made by Seagate, not Maxtor like all their recent drives'.

Currently I run a 500GB, a 500GB 2.5" in my laptop, a 1TB, 3x 1.5TB 7200RPM, 2x 1.5TB 5900RPM, 3x 2.0TB 5900RPM. All seagates. The only issue I've had with them was the bad firmware problem on the 1.5TB. Their SATA connectors are just as rugged as any other drive I've used, and if you drop them they will sometimes break. That isn't to say I haven't had seagate drives die, I just had a 250GB drive die on me a few weeks ago. Replaced it with a WD 500GB because it was on sale. I've had my fair share of WD drives die on me too. I had a WD RE2 drive, that is supposed to last longer and be more reliable than the normal drives, die on me after just 4 months. I've owned drives from every manufacturer, and they have failures, but one isn't really better than the other. That is why there isn't a point in avoiding one manufacturer or the other, I buy what gives me the most for my money.

Again I'm sort of confused by your post though. You say you treat your drives with utter care, then say you've dropped them, and spilled water on them.

[Maban]

Since at least end of November these drives can be found in the FreeAgent GoFlex Desk externals. I also see they got rid of the digit in the model number that says physical size. 3 for 3.5", 9 for 2.5", etc. They actually got rid of most of the telltale digits.

[HillBeast]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Again I'm sort of confused by your post though. You say you treat your drives with utter care, then say you've dropped them, and spilled water on them.

When I said utter care, I meant the new Seagate drives. As for the WD, that's because my water cooling came undone in my computer due to crappy tubing. I am a certified computer technician, with degrees in computer science, several qualifications from Cisco and Microsoft, and a certificate in computer maintenance. I know how tough a hard drive should be. Dropping a hard drive kills it, and most of the times when I dropped a hard drive, I did it intentionally to see how tough it is.

These Seagate drives, if they can't even handle spinning up without dying then they must have something seriously wrong with them. Sorry Seagate, but I'm stay with Western Digital from now on. I have not had any of them die on me.

Also, I have a 200GB pre Maxtor Barracuda. I drop that all the time (it's external and it gets knocked off the desk). Still going perfectly.