Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB HDD

The Barracuda XT hard drive from Seagate is a 2-TB,

7200-RPM desktop drive with a 64-MB cache. It is the first ever drive to sport a

SATA 6Gb/s interface.  The Seagate  Barracuda XT 2TB was able to garner average

transfer speeds of about 101 MB/sec with an access time of 14.1 ms which was

promptly mentioned by the HDTune Benchmark. When plugged into the SATA 6Gb/s

port, the drive delivered an average transfer speed of 109 MB/sec. But the major

difference was recorded in the burst speed of the drive in the two scenarios.

The drive was able to achieve a burst speed of 102 MB/sec when connected on to

the SATA 2 port, whereas connecting it to the SATA 3 port returned a burst speed

of 178 MB/sec, which is a major improvement. Compare this with the average

transfer rate of 91.4 MB/sec and access time of 12.3 ms achieved by the Seagate

Barracuda LP 2TB, in the same price range, we reviewed in October 2009. This

clearly indicates a big step up in transfer speed.

Bottomline:  Great total capacity and really good

performance, but it comes at a high price premium.