HDD Seagate 400  Gbytes SATA

Evgenie Rudometov

http://www.rudometov.com

Continuing the bar of the models of hard disks Barracuda 7200.8, company Seagate has released the 3,5-inch arrangement with interface Serial ATA and size of 400 Gbytes. The given model possesses not only high information capacity, but also high efficiency

As is known, possibilities of computer systems are substantially defined entering into their structure of accessories. Performance of tasks in view eventually depends on their parametres and a quiescent operation, starting from purely computing and finishing processing of the various multimedia information. Giving due all computer accessory, it is necessary to mark, what not the last role among them is played by hard disk drives (HDD). Providing non-volatile storage of programs and data, these arrangements are one of the major accessories, making a basis of modern computer systems.

From year to year their parametres improve. And first of all it concerns increases in the information capacity providing saving of the information which sizes increase from year to year. The given prompt growth is powerful stimulus for perfection of the architecture of these major accessories. Thus perfection is routed as on size growth, and increase in productivity and dependability of operation.

Estimating possibilities of the given arrangements, it is necessary to remind, that each of hard disk drives consists of four basic elements which bring the contribution in technical and operating performances. These units are: the magnetic medium of the information presented by magnetic disks (from one to five), magnetic read/write heads, a positioner (aktuator), installing a head on the necessary track and the built in controller on the specialised chips, providing handle and data transfer.

Productivity of disk drives on hard disks is defined by a number of parametres, major of which are the bit density, access time to data, the cache memory size. Besides, productivity is influenced by control algorithms disk drive units, and also used internal and data transfer front ends. Each of the enumerated components brings the contribution to hard disk drive productive work.

Access time to data consists of time of head positioning for the necessary track and a latency (latency) the necessary sector under a head. It is obvious, that the latency depends on speed of rotation of magnetic disks, and rate of data transfer on other subsystems of the computer depends on the front end. Besides, rate depends on speed of the internal information transfer depending not in the last instance from a bit density.

Considering resources of an external information transfer, it is necessary to mark, that traditionally greatest distribution was found by models with parallel interface ATA — Parallel ATA (PATA, it IDE, EIDE, ATAPI). The Transfer rate permanently increased and has reached values of 100 Mb per second and even more. And though speed of reading of the information from magnetic disks, as a rule, does not reach even value of 100 Mb per second, models with PATA - the interface of 133 Mb per second are actively announced . However despite all their advantages more perspective is serial interface ATA — Serial ATA (SATA). It provides even in the first variant a transfer rate with a speed of 150 Mb per second. The second variant named Serial ATA 2, and those more — to 300 Mb per second, and third even more high-speed — to 600 Mb per second.

As to other characteristics of disk drives it is necessary to mark, that the bit density increase allows to increase size and a transfer rate at the same speed of rotation of disks. Thus in last years of hard disks of ten size with amazing persistence doubled each 9-12 months. However, in last pair-triple years growth rate was a little decelerated — 1,5-2 years, but also it is absolutely a lot of: to compare to speed of evolution of processors enough.

Estimating high rates of growth, it is necessary to mark, that the last two-three years rate of overgrowth of size has a little decreased, that testifies to reaching of some limit for existing processing techniques of a data recording/reading. But, despite it manufacturers continue to release more and more perfect arrangements, increasing their information capacity and changing criteria of an optimality.

Really, optimal for desktop computers models of disk drives on hard microfloppy magnetic disks with speed of rotation of disks of 7200 rpm, the built in cache memory of 2 Mb and size of 100‑120 Gbytes until recently were   . Any time such arrangements were considered quite sufficient for storage of programs and data of different type. However now arrangements of such size step-by-step give way to more capacious models of disk drives.

Responding to inquiries of the market, company Seagate Technology continues to increase information storage density on magnetic disks. It provides increase in size of appropriate arrangements. The upper model of disk drives Seagate of bar Barracuda 7200.7, is capable to store 200 Gbytes of the information in the presence of only two slices.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.8

Despite rather high efficiency of high model Barracuda 7200.7, company Seagate has not stopped on reached and has released the following bar Barracuda which has received name Seagate Barracuda 7200.8.

Among disk drives with interface SATA high model Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 is the model with information capacity of 400 Gbytes and the built in cache memory in size of 8 Mb (a Fig. 1 – a Fig. 3).

Rice 1. Hard disk drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 with informational size of 400 Gbytes, interface SATA, the cache memory-buffer in size of 8 Mb

Rice 2. Built in controller SATA of model Seagate Barracuda in 7200.8 size of 400 Gbytes

Rice 3. Marking of 400 Gbytes of model Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 with interface SATA

By the way, besides this model, in the popular bar of disk drives Barracuda 7200.8 there is also a variant of 400 Gbytes with interface PATA.

On all disk drives of the given bar according to the order bookings the five years' guarantee of the manufacturer extends, that indirectly testifies to high dependability of the given arrangements.

Barracuda 7200.8 set drives differ high efficiency and are the most reliable in branch, soaking, by the way, as well as their predecessors Barracuda 7200.7, loads to 350 G in a non-working state. Here it is necessary to add, that they besides are also one of the most silent disk drives of a form factor of 3,5 inches created on the basis of hard magnetic disks. Really, in the order bookings as audio parametres value 2,8 bell is resulted.

High parametres of productivity, size, dependability and noiselessness are reached, according to creators, thanks to application of the whole set of firm processing techniques.

High efficiency of the given model of the disk drive is promoted by considerable speed of rotation of a spindle of the engine which makes 7200 turns in a minute, and also the cache memory in size of 8 Mb and the optimised control algorithms mechanical and electronic units of the disk drive.

As to concrete values of productivity in widespread applied tasks they can be received only in the course of testing. Thus as the main measurement standard it is possible to take the high representative of prior bar Barracuda 7200.7 — model 200 of Gbytes, as it has been fulfilled.

Results of the led testing of disk drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 SATA by size of 400 Gbytes and its matchings with models Barracuda in 7200.7 size of 200 and 160 Gbytes (Table 1, Table 2, a Fig. 4, a Fig. 5) are more low resulted    . It is necessary to mark, that the selected standard model differs rather high efficiency that creates certain problems for lead of new model.

Testing Seagate Barracuda of 7200.8 400 Gbytes

Pattern of the system used in testing

·         the Motherboard: ASUS P5AD2 (chip set I925 X, memory DDR2).

·        the Processor of Intel of Pentium  4 with clock rate of a kernel of 3,4 GHz (LGA 775, kernel Prescott, the bus of 800 MHz, processing technique Hyper-Threading),

·         the Disk drive on hard disks 1: HDD Seagate ST3400832A (Barracuda 7200.8, 400 Gbytes, 8 Mb of the cache memory, 7200 rpm, Serial ATA/150).

·         the Disk drive on hard disks 2: HDD Seagate ST3200822A (Barracuda 7200.7, 200 Gbytes, 8 Mb of the cache memory, 7200 rpm, Parallel ATA/100).

·         the Disk drive on hard disks 3: HDD Seagate ST3200823A (Barracuda 7200.7, 160 Gbytes, 8 Mb of the cache memory, 7200 rpm, Parallel ATA/100).

·         Dynamic storage: 2X512 Mb, DDR2 533.

·        ASUS EXTREME AX 600 XT Videoadapter (chip ATI Radeon X600 XT, bus PCI Express x16).

·        CD-ROM: ASUS CD-S400/A (40x).

·        OS: Windows XP.

As exercisers used WinBench 99 and High-End Disk WinMark 99.

Table 1. Results Disk Transfer Rate

Fig. 4. Results of performance of test Winbench 99 Disk Transfer Rate

Table 2. Results High-End Disk

Fig. 5. Results of performance of test Winbench 99 High - End Disk WinMark 99

From the resulted results of testing it is visible, that disk drive Seagate Barracuda of 400 Gbytes with interface SATA really exceeds earlier released models 200 of Gbytes and 160 Gbytes on productivity  . It, however, also followed expect.

The disk drive on hard disks Barracuda in 7200.8 size of 400  Gbytes has been given by German representation of company Seagate