Introduction

When one manufacturer has a breakthrough in hard drive capacity, the other manufacturers rush to make sure their product line contains at least one entry at the new capacity level. However, it can sometimes take a while for actual product to arrive after these announcements, so it can be difficult to buy the particular drive that a consumer wants. Fortunately, the distribution channels have begun to fill with 1TB drives over the last several months, and consumers are now able to buy these massive hard drives with relative ease. In our head-to-head comparison today, we pit Seagate's 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 ES.2 against Western Digital's 1TB Caviar GP, along with updated results from the Hitachi 1TB drive that kicked off the "Era of Tera".

The Combatants

After Hitachi, Seagate was the first of our competitors out of the gate with its 1TB drive announcements, listing several different incarnations of its largest-capacity drive. Seagate positions their Barracuda 7200.11 as a desktop-class drive.

Seagate leverages its industry-leading five-year warranty and PMR recording technology in their mainstream 7200.11 desktop class drive. Anyone familiar with Seagate's drive naming conventions will recognize that this drive is the eleventh generation of their 7200RPM mainstream drives, marking over 15 years that they have been producing drives at that spindle speed. We were surprised once again at the launch of this new class of drive, as Seagate announced the 7200.10 series just over a year ago. The major enhancement in the 7200.11 product series over the 7200.10 is a simple increase in areal density. The platter size increases from 188GB on the 7200.10 series to 250GB on the 7200.11 product. This increase in density is the primary reason for the claim of this drive being "second generation PMR recording technology". The other major change is an increase from 16MB cache to 32MB cache on the 1TB drive. We will look to find out what performance benefits, if any, come with this "second generation" technology.

Western Digital followed Seagate's lead in introducing their 1TB Caviar GP in July of 2007, though their approach to the technology differs considerably. Where the Seagate drive focuses on reliability and trading on their established name, the Western Digital Caviar GP seeks to set itself apart with its low power consumption. This "green" approach - dubbed "environmentally responsible storage" in their product literature - attempts to portray the GP line as environmentally friendly due to a low power consumption figure. While we can all appreciate lower power requirements in our computing components, it remains an open question if users are willing to accept any performance trade-offs to get there. Our main question today is if Western Digital's focus on being "green" comes at the cost of performance, and how does the new Seagate 7200.11 compare to the 7200.10 series. Let us look at the specifications to see the numbers behind the headlines.

The Tale of the Tape

Hard Drive Specifications
	Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB	Western Digital Caviar GP 1TB
Manufacturer's Stated Capacity	1000.2GB (1 Terabyte)	1000.2GB (1 Terabyte)
Operating System Stated Capacity	931.5 GB	931.5 GB
Interface	SATA 3Gb/s	SATA 3Gb/s
Rotational Speed	7,200 RPM	5400-7200 RPM (variable)
Cache Size	32 MB	16 MB
Average Latency	4.16ms (nominal)	5.6ms (nominal)
Read Seek Time	8.9ms	8.9ms
Number of Heads	8	8
Number of Platters	4	4
Power Draw (Idle/Load)	8W/12.0W	4W/7.4 W
Command Queuing	Native Command Queuing	Native Command Queuing
Warranty	5 Years	3 Years

The specifications chart spells out the extent of the differences between the two drives. The Seagate drive runs at 7200RPM with a 32MB buffer. The Western Digital drive's IntelliPower algorithm, which varies the rotational speed between 5400RPM and 7200RPM, dictates the Western Digital's rotational speed. Despite this variable rotational speed, Western Digital specifies the same average seek time as Seagate. Western Digital lists this product as a desktop-class drive; it carries a three-year warranty, which falls short of the Seagate's five-year warranty. Western Digital's enterprise drive (RE2-GP) carries a five-year warranty and offers similar performance.

Test Setup

Standard Test Bed Playback for Test Application Results
Processor	Intel E6600 - 2.4GHz Dual Core
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6
RAM	2 x 1GB OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 Settings - DDR2-800, 4-4-3-9
OS Hard Drive	1 x Western Digital WD1500 Raptor - 150GB
System Platform Drivers	Intel 8.3.0.1013 Intel Matrix RAID 7.6.0.1011
Video Card	1 x MSI 8800GTX
Video Drivers	NVIDIA Forceware 162.18
Optical Drive	Plextor PX-760A, Plextor PX-B900A
Cooling	Tuniq 120
Power Supply	Corsair HX620W
Case	Cooler Master CM Stacker 830
Operating System	Windows XP Professional SP2, Vista Ultimate 32-bit

We are using an Intel E6600 dual-core CPU to ensure that we are not limited by computing power in our testing. We have used a 2GB memory configuration for these tests, but will soon be updating our test beds to a 4GB platform due to current DDR2-800 pricing and upcoming game and application requirements. Our choice of midrange OCZ Reaper HPC PC2-6400 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 4-4-3-10 used for our storage benchmark results.

The testbed uses an MSI 8800GTX video card to ensure that our benchmarks are not GPU bound. Our video tests are run at a resolution of 1280x1024 for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. We fully patch the OS and load a clean drive image for each platform in order to make sure that driver conflicts are minimal.

We format before each test run and complete five tests on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. We remove the high and low scores and report the remaining score. The Windows XP swap file is set to a static 2048MB and we clear the prefetch folder after each benchmark.

Software Test Suite

With the variety of disk drive benchmarks available, we need a means of comparing the true performance of the hard drives in real world applications. Our suite for this test will include:

• HD Tach
• HD Tune
• Acoustics and Thermals
• PCMark05
• WinRAR
• Nero Recode
• Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
• Supreme Commander
• Windows Vista Startup / Shutdown
• PCMark Vantage

Our benchmark suite undergoes constant evaluation; as a result, there are several new items in our repertoire for this article. We discuss the individual tests in more detail in the actual test sections, so look to those areas for more information. In addition, there will be additional changes in coming articles to reflect conditions which users are likely to encounter, so watch this space!

HD Tune and HD Tach

Neither HD Tune nor HD Tach liked the Western Digital drive very much at all, giving it below average scores in most aspects of the test. The Seagate 7200.11 drive fares substantially better in the sustained transfer rate test, though its burst speed came in surprisingly low.

As always, HD Tach and HD Tune are examples of synthetic benchmarks, which measure very specific aspects of the drive (seek time, burst rate, etc.) without any true indication of real-world performance. Still, these are important guidelines and show how these drives perform compared to the specifications provided by the manufacturers.

Acoustics

Our test methodology for acoustics has changed. Rather than checking the drive inside the case with components, we use an external USB-SATA converter cable to run the drive to a different physical room to take our measurements. While the conversion to USB does reduce the performance level of the drive during the test, it leaves the noise characteristics unchanged. The drive sits atop a small brick of acoustical sponge material to keep it raised from the floor without introducing additional vibration. We take measurements at a distance of 5mm from the rear and front of the drive. These precautions, whose results on earlier drives confirm the accuracy of our previous methodology, will further reduce the likelihood of ambient noise from the PC interfering with our results.

Our acoustic tests measure the decibel levels while the system is at idle and under load while running the General Hard Disk Drive Usage benchmark within PCMark 2005. We found through trial and error that this particular benchmark produces controlled readings across a wide range of applications within the benchmark. This particular benchmark utilizes 60% reads and 40% writes within the trace playback file.

We report measurements based on an A-weighted decibel score that measures frequencies similar to the way the human ear responds to sound. We take three measurements for each test. We then subtract the high and low scores and arrive at our findings by reporting the remaining score. The test room has a base acoustical level of 20dB(A).

The idle noise level of the Caviar GP is impressive, owing to the lower rotational speed of the drive due to its power saving technology. At load, however, the drive is slightly louder than the Samsung T166. The Seagate 7200.11 drive turns in middling results in both tests.

Thermals

Our thermal tests utilize sensor readings via the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) capability of the drives as reported by utilizing the Active SMART 2.6 utility. We also utilize thermal sensors and infrared measurement devices to verify our utility results. We test our drives in an enclosed case environment without the fans operational to simulate temperatures that conceivably exists in a near-silent SFF or HTPC case design. We typically find the reported numbers drop anywhere from 14% to 25% with the case fans operational. Our base temperature level in the room at the time of testing is 25C.

Here is where we see the Caviar GP shine. The temperature reading of 42.4C under load is the coolest conventional drive we have tested, coming in even cooler than the Samsung T166. The Seagate 7200.11 produces comparatively little heat at idle, but warms quickly under load, finishing near the hottest drives we have tested.

PCMark05

We use the HDD test suite within PCMark05 for further comparative hard disk scores as it provides a mixture of actual application results and specific read/write percentages made use of by these programs. The program utilizes the RankDisk application within the Intel iPEAK SPT suite of tools to record a trace of disk activity during usage of real world applications. We replay these traces to generate performance measurements based upon the actual disk operations within each application. The HDD test suite contains 53% read and 47% write operations with each trace section utilizing varied amounts of read or write operations.

In PCMark05, we see a substantial narrowing of the performance gap between the Seagate and the Western Digital drive, though neither device fares particularly well against the competition. The XP Startup portion of the test is particularly brutal on our 1TB drives, putting the 7200.11 behind the 7200.10 and just barely edging out the 7200.9 competition, which Seagate markets as being two generations older.

The Western Digital drive finishes at or near the bottom in every test. While this result is not surprising given WD's focus on power saving features rather than performance, it is certainly enough to give pause to the average desktop user who would consider choosing this unit for a heavy multitasking setup.

WinRAR

We updated our WinRAR test methodology. We are now using a larger and more comprehensive directory structure (3 gigabytes, 302 files and 22 folders), and are using the "store" mode to eliminate the CPU as being a bottleneck in our testing. We repeat each test three times to ensure consistency. Our first WinRAR test takes our sample directory from the source WD Raptor drive and puts it in an archive on the test device. This is a good representation of a practical "write" test of the test device. We then take the newly created archive, and uncompress it on the same drive. The test therefore becomes a combination of read, write, and seek performance.

This is a very interesting result. As expected, the Samsung T166 turns in strong results compared to both the Western Digital and Seagate devices, but the real story is how poorly the Seagate 7200.11 performs in the second test. This is a real concern, as the pattern has been clear and consistent when it comes to tests involving both read and write operations. The Seagate 7200.11 clearly has a serious handicap in this regard. The Samsung T166 showed itself in previous tests to be an above-average performer, but even the Western Digital Caviar bests the Seagate by nearly 20%.

Nero Recode

Our Nero Recode test takes our Office Space DVD folder and shrinks it down to fit onto a single 4.5GB DVD. This test is highly dependent on the CPU, however, and given our newer test bed, previous results aren't directly comparable with these benchmarks.

Given earlier results, the fact that the drives are separated by only 5 seconds from top to bottom means that this test is more about stressing system components (i.e. the CPU) than working out the storage medium, although a fast hard drive is still valuable.

Company of Heroes

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts is the latest installment in Relic's wildly popular WWII real time strategy series. For our test, we load the first campaign level (Wolfheze) and measure the time it takes to display the "press any key" message. To ensure test consistency, we are using the base installation of Opposing Fronts without keeping current with Relic's frequent patching.

Here we see a narrowing of the performance results, though the drives continue to show results consistent with our earlier benchmarks. The T166 edges the Seagate drive very slightly, while the Western Digital Caviar GP trails the pack.

Supreme Commander

Supreme Commander is the second of our gaming benchmarks for this article. For this test, we measure the time it takes to load the first Campaign level, starting the timer when we click the launch icon and ending when the commander is visible and stationary on the ground.

Our benchmark shows that there is very little load time differential between the fastest and slowest hard drives tested. Games such as this remain a difficult task for conventional hard drives, as they rely to such a large degree on seek times. The results, however, continue to rank the drives as before.

Windows Vista

Vista (and its associated drivers and applications) has finally matured to the point where we feel comfortable including it in our benchmark suite. To that end, we are pleased to include the following as our inaugural Vista storage selections:

• Windows Vista Startup / Shutdown
• PCMark Vantage

Going forward, we will continue to expand the Vista benchmark and application selection as they become ready for prime time. With this in mind, we have chosen not to include hibernation benchmarks in our initial round of testing due to related issues with Vista. Service Pack 1 should go a long way towards resolving these issues (and initial looks at the latest release candidate suggest that it does), so we will revisit this decision when the final release of SP1 comes out.

Our Vista strategy follows the one we are using for Windows XP. We apply only major milestone releases (SP1, SP2, etc) and keep drivers updated as necessary. Whenever there is a major driver (or OS) update, we will go back and re-run previous benchmarks to ensure that the data set remains consistent. For our tests, we disable Windows Defender, set the paging file to a static 3.0GB in size, and limit the Recycle Bin to 1GB maximum. We also close the Sidebar application.

PCMark Vantage

PCMark Vantage is the latest benchmark available from Futuremark, and is available only on Windows Vista. Similar to the venerable PCMark05 in its makeup, Vantage modernizes the criteria and test methodology to reflect what users may encounter when running the new Windows OS.

For the HD test suite, the white paper breaks the tests down as:

• Windows Defender: Windows Defender performs a scan operation, resulting in a read-intensive (99.5% read, 0.5% write) benchmark reflecting a common task in Windows Vista.
• Gaming Performance: Streaming performance is measured using actual game mechanics found in Alan Wake. This test is nearly all read (99.95% read, 0.05% write) in nature.
• Windows Photo Gallery: A large collection of images is imported into Windows Photo Gallery. This is the first of the tests which bring write performance into account in a meaningful way, with a roughly 84% read, 16% write ratio.
• Windows Vista Startup: Simulates Windows Vista start-up operations, producing a test that breaks down to roughly 85% read and 15% write operations.
• Windows Movie Maker: The first of the Vantage tests which comes close to equally dividing read and write operations (54% read, 46% write), concurrent video performance is tested both for video read and skip performance, as well as video write operations.
• Windows Media Center: Performing three distinct tasks:
  • SDTV video playback
  • SDTV video streaming to Extender for Windows Media Center
  • SDTV video recording
• Windows Media Player: Adds music to Windows Media Player. This test reverts to favoring read operations (78% read, 22% write).
• Application Loading: The following applications are loaded:
  • Microsoft Word 2007
  • Adobe Photoshop CS2
  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Outlook 2007

The total benchmark is roughly 87% reads and 13% writes in nature. We run each test five times per drive, producing a median score that we use for comparison in our charts.

PCMark Vantage Continued...

Remaining true to what we've come to expect in our previous tests, PCMark Vantage shows us that neither the WD Caviar GP nor the Seagate 7200.11 are performance leaders. While the results they turn in are respectable, they are no threat to the drives sitting atop our charts.

Of interest, the Seagate performed poorly in both benchmarks that had higher write operation content. We have re-run the tests several times, and continue to see the Seagate 7200.11 drive turn in sub-par results in these types of tests. We saw this trend continue not only in PCMark Vantage, but also throughout the entire test suite for this article. The results indicate that the write performance problems with the 7200.10 are still present with this series update.

Vista Startup / Shutdown

As in our Windows XP test, we feel it is important to include Windows Vista startup and shutdown figures. Given the amount of suspend-related problems that Microsoft is still working out with Vista, we will exclude hibernation and resume scores from our current test methodology. We will re-evaluate this after Service Pack 1 is available for general use.

Our startup timer begins when we select Vista from the OS Choices menu at startup. We end when the login screen appears. For the shutdown test, we turn off Vista with no applications running. We run the test three times, and take the average result of the three scores.

The Western Digital GP is clearly slower than any other drive in the startup tests while it performs better in the shutdown test. The Seagate 7200.11 has results again at the bottom of this elite pack of drives, but with better performance than the WD drive in the startup test and lower performance in the shutdown test.

Conclusion

Western Digital and Seagate clearly had very different goals in mind when they created their respective drives, and the benchmark data shows that they each had some success in achieving those goals. Their strengths certainly come with weaknesses attached, however, and it is clear that both drives have shortcomings that would steer many potential buyers elsewhere.

To begin with, neither of these drives is a world-beater in terms of their raw performance. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 doesn't show any meaningful improvement over Seagate's previous iteration of drives, and at no time challenged units which have been established as the top performers (Western Digital Raptor and Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000). In fact, the only drive which the 7200.11 did manage to beat consistently was the Western Digital Caviar GP, a drive which abandoned the thought of leading the performance race altogether in favor of being energy efficient. In this category, the Caviar GP performs admirably, requiring less power, producing relatively little heat, and running quietly while still offering competitive performance on the desktop.

At a street price of about $329, it is difficult to recommend the Seagate drive when the faster Hitachi 7K1000 only costs a few dollars more ($350 street) and surpasses the Seagate in most tests. The 7200.11 is also comparatively noisy and runs only slightly cooler than the Hitachi drive. Seagate's 7200.11 offering performs adequately, though the continued issues in the write-intensive benchmarks are troubling. Simply put, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 is outclassed in the 1TB segment. Seagate does offer a five-year warranty (versus three-years for Hitachi), but truthfully the data is usually far more valuable than the drive; if you need to exercise the warranty, you will likely be unhappy regardless of when a drive failure occurs. A good backup plan is definitely recommended if you value your data.

Passing judgment on the Western Digital Caviar GP is a little bit more difficult. Clearly, its performance is less than stellar; the redeeming feature of the Seagate drive is only that it turns in better results than the Western Digital drive. The Caviar GP, however, is not about pure performance. This drive is about running as efficiently as possible, and it does an excellent job in this regard. In situations where a lot of storage is needed, power consumption is at a premium, and noise is a major enemy (read: HTPC setups), the Western Digital Caviar GP may indeed be a very good choice.

Whether it is a better choice than the Hitachi 7K1000 is a matter of debate, however. With AAM on, the Hitachi drive produced only slightly more noise than the Western Digital, though its power consumption was considerably more. In the vast majority of cases, either drive performs adequately for a single instance of any home-brew PVR application, so if the choice is limited to this type of use, the Western Digital drive may be a better choice, particularly given that at $280 it is substantially less expensive than the Hitachi or the Seagate. The price differential is enough in our opinion to offset the performance penalty that comes with choosing the Western Digital over the Hitachi, but plan this decision carefully if you are not utilizing the drive in an HTPC or SFF system.