As hard drive capacities continue to soar into the stratosphere, a 30GB drive offers both breathing room and a place to catch your breath -- more than enough space for reasonable use without stretching today's technical limits. Seagate Technology's Barracuda ATA II ST330630A promises to be a worthy contender in this lofty category, and it's appealingly priced at AU$360.
With three platters spinning at 7,200 rpm, six heads delivering an average access time of 8.2ms, an ATA/66 interface, and a 2MB internal cache, the Barracuda delivers lightning-quick performance. When running on an ATA/33 interface, the Barracuda approaches the scorching speeds of the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 40 drive. When placed in a system that supports its ATA/66 bus, the Barracuda accelerates past the Diamond Max, scoring an impressive 5,160 on the Business Disk WinMark 99 test on our 300MHz Pentium II-based testbed. Although these speed differences are measurable, they are small and shouldn't be your primary buying consideration.
Seagate includes its DiscWizard software to speed installation and match all those gigabytes to systems with older BIOSs. If necessary, it will automatically install a Dynamic Drive Overlay (essentially a software BIOS extension) so you can use the full 30GB on most older PCs. Seagate also includes a separate DOS-based file-copying utility, which will migrate everything from your old drive to the new one.
The documentation should be easy to follow if you're familiar with a PC's innards, but it might not be sufficient for component-upgrade neophytes. A three-year warranty protects you if the drive's mechanical measures don't.
If your current hard drive is about to burst its seams, the Seagate Barracuda ATA II offers an excellent value.
Seagate Barracuda ATA II
Company: Synnex
Ph: 1300 651 665; Fax: 1300 658 891
Price: AU$360.
Rating: 4 Star
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