Seagate Barracuda ST3400832AS Hard Disk 

Monday, January 23, 2006

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This 400 GB, 7200 rpm drive from Seagate uses a technology called NCQ (Native Command Queuing), which improves its overall performance by providing an efficient method of executing disk commands. However, NCQ requires a compatible platform to work, else it remains disabled. For Intel-based systems, you need to use motherboards with at least Intel 915P Express chipset. We tested it with an Athlon64 X2 system on an Asus A8N-E motherboard with nForce 4 chipset that supports NCQ, and it gave us good results. It gave a disk access time of 11.7 ms against its rated 11 ms. Its average transfer rate was an impressive 66.5 MB per sec.

An interesting metric recorded was the transfer-rate end metric, where the Seagate yielded 62.9 MB per sec, which was much better than other drives we've tested so far. Similarly, it scored 19.8 in Business Disk Winmark which was a good score. In the High-End Disk Winmark, the score was a  good 45.1.

There is one thing to be taken care of during installation. The drivers for this drive need to be installed separately during installation of the OS. Failing to do so results in the hard drive not being detected at times.

Bottom Line: The drive comes with a warranty of five years and is also well priced, with performance to match. The Seagate Barracuda drive can suite the requirements of a broader spectrum. It's well suited for people who need to store voluminous multimedia content on their disks. It can also be used for servers in a small office setup and low cost NAS (Network Attched Storage) boxes.

Anadi Misra

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