AfterDawn: News

Seagate announces 1.5 Terabyte SATA drive

In August Seagate will begin shipping new Barracuda hard drives that hold 1.5TB (1.5 trillion bytes) of data. It represents a 50% over their current Barracuda drives, which go up to 1TB. Some time in the fourth quarter they'll also be introducing the new Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 laptop (2.5") drives, capable of storing 500GB (500 billion bytes).

"Organizations and consumers of all kinds worldwide continue to create, share and consume digital content at levels never before seen, giving rise to new markets, new applications and demand for desktop and notebook computers with unprecedented storage capacity, performance and reliability," said Michael Wingert, Seagate executive vice president and general manager, Personal Compute Business. "Seagate is committed to powering the next generation of computing today with the planet's fastest, highest-capacity and most reliable storage solutions."



Despite the ever-increasing need for more storage, especially for multimedia, it's important to remember that relying on a single drive to hold that much without some kind of disaster-recovery solution like a RAID array or backup (or better yet both) is asking for trouble. If you're planning to buy one of these massive drives you should also make sure you're prepared for the worst.

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 11 Jul 2008 15:23

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• 21 comments

• chaos_zzz

  this is great, i currently have 3 250gb hd's on my pc, too much noise, i probaly should get one of these but all my info on a single drive running 24/7, it does scare me , are there any more secure options?

  11.7.2008 15:50 #1

• 7thsinger

  Wonder what the price tag is on that little gem?
  
  That's a ton of storage though. Plenty of space for everything.

  11.7.2008 15:58 #2

• area_51

  Still think multiple drives are better than one big one.

  11.7.2008 16:00 #3

• SSSJDanny

  Dang! I wonder if that will work on PS3?
  I know PS3's need a 2.5" Hard Drive
  I'd buy it if anyone could clarify that it will work.

  11.7.2008 17:06 #4

• mrklean

  Multiple drives > One big one
  
  Its around 1396gb not 1500gb though.
  
  Bigger the drive bigger the loss due to 1024 vs 1000

  11.7.2008 17:31 #5

• pollution

  1TB drives should drop in price :).

  11.7.2008 17:36 #6

• ikari

  Originally posted by chaos_zzz: this is great, i currently have 3 250gb hd's on my pc, too much noise, i probaly should get one of these but all my info on a single drive running 24/7, it does scare me , are there any more secure options?They have 1 tb or 1.5 NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices avaiable. These devices combined 3-4 drives allowing you to RAID them together if you are worried about losing data. I have yet to buy one but I am getting closer as my HDDs are getting full. From what I hear they are pretty cool but a little spendy.
  
  I can't wait for solid state technology to advance further and prices drop. I would love to have to 20gb solid state drive as my OS drive. Assuming the OS would be speced to handle the increased read and write times it would be sweet! /offtopic

  11.7.2008 18:05 #7

• SDF_GR

  That news equals to 1TB under 100Euros, excellent!
  I always had and have seagate HDD's, never had a problem,
  IMO Seagate is the most reliable HDD manufacture.
  
  Originally posted by SSSJDanny: Dang! I wonder if that will work on PS3?
  I know PS3's need a 2.5" Hard Drive
  I'd buy it if anyone could clarify that it will work.
  I have 2x1TB external drives connected to PS3 and they work just fine.
  If you want to have it as an internal tho, here is a way
  you put this
  
  
  inside the PS3 instead of HDD
  and outputs this
  
  
  
  I dont know the HDD capaciry limit of the PS3, if there is one.

  11.7.2008 18:24 #8

• Pop_Smith

  I hate the whole size lie. Western Digital got sued for it, I am not sure if it came to anything though.
  
  I don't run linux (yet!) but does it report 1 megabyte as 1,000 bytes instead of 1,024 bytes like Windows? If it doesn't I then I don't see were hard drive makers get the number.

  11.7.2008 20:36 #9

• 1bonehead

  No thermal issues ?
  

  The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  The IFPI Are: The same anti consumer lot as listed above!
  The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX.

  11.7.2008 21:11 #10

• scorpNZ

  Originally posted by Pop_Smith: I hate the whole size lie. Western Digital got sued for it, I am not sure if it came to anything though.
  
  I don't run linux (yet!) but does it report 1 megabyte as 1,000 bytes instead of 1,024 bytes like Windows? If it doesn't I then I don't see were hard drive makers get the number.Saw an article & the explanation on this very issue it's to do with calculation they use to measure,there's two types of measurement ones done in binary (can't remember the other)the industry settled on one type,it still works out the same even tho it seems one gives less than the other it's just not the case,just do a web search it'll give a better explanation,in short your not being short changed :p

  11.7.2008 21:24 #11

• 1bonehead

  Originally posted by 7thsinger: Wonder what the price tag is on that little gem?
  
  That's a ton of storage though. Plenty of space for everything.
  I've seen 3 Tb storage units for about $700 USD
  

  The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  The IFPI Are: The same anti consumer lot as listed above!
  The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX.

  11.7.2008 23:26 #12

• xugiua

  Ya, the size thing. They're the SAME!! Why don't people understand, it makes me angry. It's the same size, you fit the same data on it no matter what system you use (basicaly) some use 1000 bytes a sector some use 1024 a sector. People get on the computer and just don't want to figure it out. Just want to complain.

  11.7.2008 23:30 #13

• windsong

  Gah, Ive so had it with these lame platter drives that break under 1 year. I wish they would bring out solid state drives (no moving parts) at an affordable price range. Oh but to do that would impact their data recovery services which charge 1800 and up for data recovery from hard disks. Can't have the entire marketplace owning drives that last 10 years now can we? ;)

  12.7.2008 03:00 #14

• iluvendo

  Originally posted by windsong: Gah, Ive so had it with these lame platter drives that break under 1 year. I wish they would bring out solid state drives (no moving parts) at an affordable price range. Oh but to do that would impact their data recovery services which charge 1800 and up for data recovery from hard disks. Can't have the entire marketplace owning drives that last 10 years now can we? ;)At 1 point Maxtor made 1 million (mega) hour 300 Gb drives (guaranteed), but they also wanted megabucks too.
  

  If it wasnt for bad luck, Id have no luck!
  "The flimsier the product,the higher the price"
  Ferengi 82nd rule of aquisition

  12.7.2008 06:08 #15

• Treya

  i have 7.9 Tb of free space left. Only 190 Gb of that is from flash drives but i suppose it would be enough for the os and... well it's far more than enough but... well i haven't transferred the operating system to the ssd's. Man, the flash drives make almost no noise, consume less power and they're faster... Anyway, i have like 5 Tb running on external hd's which are in my basement. I drilled a hole through the floor. All of the hd's i have are so freakin old (except for the ssd's) that i'm starting to get worried something happens... people, never do what i have done! if you do you'll regret it. I payed a total of 4500 € for all this, definitely not worth the money... well i did count in a lot of some other stuff but still :P point is that everything is expensive.

  12.7.2008 16:25 #16

• ivymike

  Originally posted by mrklean: Multiple drives > One big one
  
  Its around 1396gb not 1500gb though.
  
  Bigger the drive bigger the loss due to 1024 vs 1000You'd think that the makers of hard disks would plan accordingly to avoid this....

  13.7.2008 04:31 #17

• rvinkebob

  I remember reading something about the confusion in HDD prices. They said the reason HDD's are so cheap is due to the poor manufacturing and are ONLY guaranteed to work for the warranty given, mostly being 1 year.
  
  A 160GB that lasted up to 5 years would cost $300-400 rather than $90. I'll try to dig up that article.
  
  As with this HDD, I see that the bigger the size, the more the risk for loss of data. I'm already worried about my current 200GB HDD as it's been performing out of whack recently. I'm considering buying an external/internal back up HDD cause losing about 150GB worth of data would kill. Losing about 1.3TB of data... damn!
  

  
  

  13.7.2008 05:01 #18

• plazma247

  Whooo baby, daddies building a new stripped array :) ummm 6tb stripe (4 x drives) Drools on floor.... . hehe heh eh e
  
  Man seagate rock, they just dont fail, i would estimate ive fitted over 250+ seagate drives for customers over the last 2 - 3 years (i only supply customers seagate)
  
  Out of those 250 ive had one bad drive... however this was due to a customer shorting the PCB on the controller and blowing it.
  
  As for other manufactures, they may have got better but seagates never failed since they went to a fluid bearing.
  
  And windsong 1800 for data recovery.. son you been using the wrong people !!! first of grab a copy of hirens boot cd as 90 % of time thats all the cowboy recovery companies are using.. ie the same software as on hirens boot cd...
  
  As for HDD lasting only a year you been buying the wrong make !! every seagate ive installed over the last 3 years is still working and im telling you thats a lot of drives.
  
  The most common cause of HDD faliur is over heat, it might not be hot enough to cause instant death but it can shorten a drives life considerably.
  
  Ive seen drives come out of badly built PCS where the drives were stacked and is actually melted and blister the black paint on the drive.
  
  As for dataloss, ive you have say 1tb drive, most of the time, well in my case only 10% maybe 20% of that is mission critical, the rest is made up of programs and shit that wouldnt kill me if i lost it.
  
  USB hdd are crazy prices now for a decent 2.5" drive, so i just dump off a mirror everyday of the mission critical stuff.... god bless robocopy :)

  13.7.2008 17:40 #19

• Mez

  rvinkebob, I only have .5 TB drives but I have had the oldest ones for about 2 years and I have not had any problems. Knock on wood!
  
  USB extrenals are for the dogs unless they are small. Look into eSATA boxs. They still have a USB2 port but you use the eSATA for routine work.
  
  I plan to upgrade my mother board just for additional HD support. I am getting a motherboard for 90 USD (after rebate) with 8 SATA connections where 3 can be ported out the back for eSATA. eSATA boxes cost the same as most other boxes. So you get about 100x faster transfer than firewire for about the same money. Firewire is still slow because your CPU must do all the data conversions. eSATAs transfer like an internal drive (about 300 gbit/sec) but are external to the computer.

  14.7.2008 09:35 #20

• pmshah

  I think a lot of the readers need to get their arithmetic right. 1.5 TB is 1.5 TB i.e. 1.5 x 10^12 BYTES which is a pure decimal figure. This is what is used by ALL HDD manufacturers. This method of calculation allows them to claim the largest CORRECT & HONEST figure when publishing the device specs.
  
  Sector size and other HDD geometry related numbers do not come into picture at all.
  
  How your system reports it is different matter altogether.

  17.7.2008 00:44 #21