The Seagate BarraCuda 2.5″ 1 TB is a 7 mm tall laptop/SFF hard disk drive. Let’s test it and see if is it faster than other similar drives.
BarraCuda (now with a capital “C”) is a traditional family among Seagate hard disk drives, usually naming high-performance models. This 2.5 inches model (therefore, aimed on laptops and SFF desktop computers) has 5,400 rpm, 128 MiB cache, and SATA-600 interface. The family offers capacities from 500 Gb up to 5 TB, with the models up to 2 TB being 7 mm tall and the 3 TB and bigger models being 15 mm tall (note that this form factor will not fit most laptops, which support drives up to 9.5 mm tall).
It is good to remember that, while 2.5 inches drives were originally destinated to laptops, they are perfectly compatible with desktop computers, as long as your case have 2.5 inches bays (most modern cases have) or you use an adapter to install it at a 3.5 inches bay.
We tested the 2.5 inches 1 TB BarraCuda, code number ST1000LM048, against two other 2.5 inches, 1 TB hard disk drives: the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and the Samsung ST1000LM024.
Figures 1 and 2 present the Seagate BarraCuda 1 TB ST1000LM048 hard disk drive, which has a two-year warranty.
Figure 1: the Seagate BarraCuda 1 TB ST1000LM048
Figure 2: the Seagate BarraCuda 1 TB ST1000LM048
In the table below, we will compare the basic specifications of these products.
|
Manufacturer
|
Model
|
Model #
|
Rotational Speed
|
| Seagate | BarraCuda 1 TB | ST1000LM048 | 5,400 rpm |
| Toshiba | Mobile HDD 1 TB | MQ01ABD100 | 5,400 rpm |
| Samsung | Momentus 1 TB | ST1000LM024 | 5,400 rpm |
|
Interface
|
Buffer
|
Capacity
|
Price*
|
| SATA-600 | 128 MiB | 7 mm | 1 TB USD 55 |
| SATA-600 | 8 MiB | 9,5 mm | 1 TB USD 49 |
| SATA-300 | 8 MiB | 9,5 mm | 1 TB USD 70 |
* All prices were researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review.
[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]
We tested the Seagate Desktop SSHD using HD Tune Pro and CrystalDiskMark programs. The drives were connected, one at a time, to an internal SATA-600 port. The only variable component between each benchmarking session was the HDD being tested.
Hardware Configuration
- CPU: Core i7-6950X running at 3.8 GHz
- Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Extreme6/3.1
- CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Ultimate
- Memory: 64 GiB DDR4-3000 HyperX Predator, four KHX3000C15/16GX 16 GiB modules running at 2400 MHz
- Boot drive: Kingston HyperX Savage 480 GB
- Case: Thermaltake Core P3
- Video Monitor: Samsung U28D590
- Power Supply: Corsair CX750
Operating System Configuration
- Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmarking Software
Error Margin
We adopted a 3% error margin in our tests, meaning performance differences of less than 3% cannot be considered meaningful. Therefore, when the performance difference between two products is less than 3%, we consider them to have similar performance.
[nextpage title=”CrystalDiskMark”]
We used CrystalDiskMark’s default configuration for our tests, which benchmarked each hard drive using a file size of 1,000 MB with five test runs.
In the sequential read test, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 13% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 16% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
In the sequential write test the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 12% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 14% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
In the random read test using 512 kiB blocks, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 19% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and the Samsung ST1000LM024.
Moving on to the random write test using 512 kiB blocks, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 65% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 105% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
In the random read test using 4 kiB blocks, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 6% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 20% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
In the random write test using 4 kiB blocks, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 30% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 86% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
In the random read test using 4 kiB blocks and queue depth of 32, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 30% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 63% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
In the random write test using 4 kiB blocks and queue depth of 32, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 27% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 75% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
[nextpage title=”DiskSpeed32″]
Now we will look at the results recorded using DiskSpeed32.
In the burst speed test, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 13% slower than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 61% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
In the average read speed, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 was 46% faster than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and 38% faster than the Samsung ST1000LM024.
Access time is another important measurement. It measures the time the storage device delays to start delivering data after the computer has asked for given data. It is measured in the order of milliseconds (ms, which are equal to 0.001 s); the lower this value, the better.
In this test, the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 obtained an access time 14% higher than the Toshiba MQ01ABD100 and the Samsung ST1000LM024.
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
Many people choose a hard disk drive based only on its rotational speed, since it is usually the main factor to influence the performance of these devices. Usually, high performance hard disk drives spin at 7,200 rpm, while drives with 5,400 rpm are value or “green” (low consumption) models. So, if you look only at the specs of the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 compared to the other drives we tested, you may think they have similar performances.
However, our tests shown that the BarraCuda ST1000LM048 is a lot faster than the other models included in this comparison. This is probably related to the bigger cache memory, among other newer technologies used in this drive.
Another highlink of the reviewed model is the 7 mm thickness, which makes it compatible with ultrabooks and thin laptops that support only this form factor.
So, if you need an 1 TB, 2.5 inches hard disk drive, the Seagate BarraCuda 1 TB is a great choice.
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