Power Consumption, Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts
Power consumption figures look good, and turn into impressive once capacity is taken into account. Realize that the BarraCuda Pro is not a NAS drive, so the second chart is not as relevant as it is for NAS builds, but it does suggest that Seagate's other NAS drives built on the same Helium-filled platform should be similarly impressive.
Conclusion:
PROS:
- Excellent sequential performance.
- Impressive 5-year warranty.
- Good (low) power consumption.
- Very quiet seeks , most of which were nearly inaudible *
CONS:
- * quiet seeks lead to moderate random / IOPS performance.
- Price is a tad on the high side.
Pricing and Availability:
Seagate BarraCuda (current street price):
- BarraCuda Pro 10TB: $509 ($0.051/GB) (Amazon)
WD competing units (street pricing):
- Black 6TB $280 ($0.047/GB) (Amazon)
- Red 8TB: $329 ($0.041/GB) (Amazon)
- Red 6TB: $237 ($0.040/GB) (Amazon)
I've included some Reds here because while they are NAS drives, they can also be used for single drive applications. The BarraCuda pricing is good, but that extra 0.4 to 1.0 cent per GB adds up when you have 10,000 of them, pushing its price over the $500 point, which may be getting steep for some purchasers.
Warranty:
The Seagate BarraCuda Pro carries a 5-year warranty rated at 300TB/year written.
Final Thoughts:
Seagate's new BarraCuda Pro line offers impressive performance for their first foray into Helium-filled 3.5" drives. The high densities led to impressive sequential transfer performance, but random performance was a bit limited by longer seek times, pushing the 7200 RPM unit into 5400 RPM territory with our mixed workloads. Pricing (cost/GB) is competitive given the premium enthusiast capacity, but it remains a bit on the high side when contrasted with similarly performing units of lower capacity. Overall an excellent showing for Seagate's push into Helium-filled hard drives. Definitely worthy of the BarraCuda name!
I’m surprised you didn’t
I’m surprised you didn’t anchor the drive down before taking those pictures. They typically fly away.
By the time I can afford one
By the time I can afford one of these, they will be 20Tb…
“The SATA connector is in an
“The SATA connector is in an ‘odd’ place at the rear”
I’m wondering where the standard position for a SATA connector on a 3.5″ drive became “odd”.
Well the connector is on the
Well the connector is on the front / top edge if the drive if you are looking at the label upright.
??
It looks EXACTLY the same
??
It looks EXACTLY the same as other drives to me.
I actually liked the little
I actually liked the little pictures Seagate would put on their hard drives back in the day, there was a fun cartoon fish, cheetah, a marathon runner or a hand holding a track and field medal. Much better than the boring old Conner, Quantum, or Maxtor labels. And where are they now? That’s right, gone!
There’s a stylized picture of
There’s a stylized picture of a barracuda on the label of this drive.
I quite like their new logos
I quite like their new logos for the drives.
Not touching until there’s a
Not touching until there’s a few years worth of reliability data available!!! Not going to be another Seagate Ginnie Pig with piles of dead drives.
Seriously? Give it up. It’s
Seriously? Give it up. It’s time for that Zombie myth to die. Take a look at current reliability stats and you’ll see that WDs are the worst drives for reliability right now. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/
Also, it’s guinea pig not “Ginnie Pig”.
Myth? Are 3TB Seagate
Myth? Are 3TB Seagate deniers a thing now?
1. Cherry picking doesn’t a
1. Cherry picking doesn’t a stat make. 2. Post your verifiable source.
Okay, I did have the EXACT
Okay, I did have the EXACT same Seagate model die that was being discussed by Backblaze a while back.
HOWEVER… Backblaze got in hot water because they not only had HDD’s incorrectly mounted, but were also using non-server drives without anti-vibration capability.
The “WD30EFRX” HDD for example is a NAS drive. It is NOT a server drive yet that is how it is being used. The suggested usage is home and small business.
So you need to be very careful about how much trust you give the stats:
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6028/dispelling-backblaze-s-hdd-reliability-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html
Zero latency on the IOMeter?
Zero latency on the IOMeter? It must have thiotimoline bearings.
I really like the look of
I really like the look of these helium drives… They look slick and futuristic for a HDD.
These are 7,200rpm drives?
These are 7,200rpm drives? Will there be a 5,400rpm version? When you have 6 or more in a NAS they tend to get loud really fast…
Most likely it will downgrade
Most likely it will downgrade to 5400 when the helium is gone 😉
Hopefully these are priced
Hopefully these are priced respectfully. I have my doubts though. Spinners are still going for way too much.