7200.7 results coming in.

[blakerwry]

The other place has low level results for the 7200.7, very comparable to the ATA V, despite its slower access times.

 

[yeti]

These results actually look very disappointing... could they be due to a 2MB cache size? Otherwise the 'Cuda V SATA -with an 8MB cache- results are much better everywhere but in STR.

Also interestingly enough the noise level went up!

Was Seagate so eager to issue this drive now that it did not apply its great and proven noise reduction techniques on this one?

 

[blakerwry]

the focus of the drive is different than that of the ATA IV and V.

I forgot to even check if they were measuring the 2MB or 8MB cache 7200.7. Normally they'd use the highest capacity highest cache drive for any given model.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

It's an 160GB drive, but ATA-100.
Better wait for the SATA model.

 

[CougTek]

These results actually look very disappointing... could they be due to a 2MB cache size?

Nope. Like many recent 7200rpm'ers, the 7200.7's problem is its lazy actuator. The DM+9 shares that weakness too. Just look at the Server benchmarks at SR and you'll see the trend among the new 7200rpm hard drives isn't something that will make you droll.

 

[CougTek]

It seems the way that manufacturers found to cut cost is to use budget actuators (read simplified and slow) in their designs. With higher density platters and decent cache algorythms, they can make those drives bearably fast for Joe average. However, for us, the storage enthousiasts, those cost-cutting decisions suck. There's no other word.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Do you have any Raptors in your systems, CT?

 

[blakerwry]

It seems the way that manufacturers found to cut cost is to use budget actuators (read simplified and slow) in their designs. With higher density platters and decent cache algorythms, they can make those drives bearably fast for Joe average. However, for us, the storage enthousiasts, those cost-cutting decisions suck. There's no other word.

Isn't that interesting considering there hasn't really been any real advancement in IDE seek time for atleast 10 years. I seem to recall several pre 4000rpm IDE drives with seeks in the 9-10ms range(or so claimed).. access times would be terrible though because of the rotational latency.

 

[CougTek]

Do you have any Raptors in your systems, CT?

What's the link of that question with what I've written above? I wrote about 7200rpm drives.

 

[CougTek]

I just saw that the results for the Serial ATA version of the Barracuda 7200.7 are also in the database now. Much better than the ATA100 version. The 8MB cache, SATA version of the 7200.7 performs up to Western Digital's Special Edition Caviar's level. It's also quieter and easier to connect since it's SATA instead of PATA (and damn 4 pins molex power connector!).

Just too bad it only feature a miserable ONE YEAR WARRANTY.

And it's already available at Newegg BTW, albeit not cheap.

 

[blakerwry]

The sATA version of the 7200.7 is supposed to be the 1st to take advantage of tagged command queuing(when used with the right controller). Perhaps this is one reason for its good performance.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

What's the link of that question with what I've written above? I wrote about 7200rpm drives.

I just wanted to know how many "enthusiast" drives you sell in respect to lazy, but quiet, 7200rpm ones.

 

[CougTek]

Since last Fall, I think I only sold Western Digital JB drives. These aren't necessarily considered to be quiet, but they sure are among the fastest IDE drives there is (except for the very recent Raptor).

I don't consider the JB to be "budget" 7200rpm drives.

 

[e_dawg]

The 7200.7 holds its own surprisingly well given its piss-poor mechanics. However, if you think about it, it is slower than the Cuda V and Cuda IV in every way except for STR. The identical score in OfficeMark actually implies that the 7200.7 is slower, because OfficeMark runs faster on drives with larger capacities -- 5-10% faster for every doubling of capacity. The 160 GB 7200.7 should have an OfficeMark score of ~322 IO/s to have identical performance to a 120 GB Cuda V @ 312 IO/s, but it only manages 313.

No SeaShield, noisier, slow seeks (yes, application performance will be decent once the cache fills up, but when you're accessing files for the first time, seek time still plays a role).

 

[blakerwry]

The 7200.7 holds its own surprisingly well given its piss-poor mechanics. However, if you think about it, it is slower than the Cuda V and Cuda IV in every way except for STR. The identical score in OfficeMark actually implies that the 7200.7 is slower, because OfficeMark runs faster on drives with larger capacities -- 5-10% faster for every doubling of capacity. The 160 GB 7200.7 should have an OfficeMark score of ~322 IO/s to have identical performance to a 120 GB Cuda V @ 312 IO/s, but it only manages 313.

No SeaShield, noisier, slow seeks (yes, application performance will be decent once the cache fills up, but when you're accessing files for the first time, seek time still plays a role).

But tagged command quing should make up for this (hopefully)

 

[e_dawg]

If TCQ was that beneficial, we would see IBM drives dominate the benchmarks... but they don't. Perhaps the sATA versions will have full driver support for TCQ, as opposed to pATA drivers, which IIRC have poor support for TCQ as written in the ATA spec.

 

[blakerwry]

The IBM drives supposedly need the correct controllers and drivers to use TCQ, and SR uses neither(to my knowledge).

sATA should work well considering Seagate is kicking things off right for budget sATA drives.