Seagate Barracuda ES.2
1 Terabyte SATA Enterprise Level Hard Drive 

2x Hard Drive Test (RAID 0)
Hard Drive Tach - 8Mb Zones

     Here is where we combine the hard drives to form a RAID 0 Array for performance and drive space purposes only. With 64Kb stripe size, the overall performance of the hard drives increase dramatically compared to a single hard drive only. However, we again see a drop in the average write speed when compared to the Barracuda 7200.11 (see conclusion). In fact, when in RAID 0, the average write speed of 8Mb zones is about the same as the Barracuda ES.2 in single drive configuration. I'm very puzzled to why this is because did not find this problem in Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 desktop series of hard drives.

2x Hard Drive Test (RAID 0)
Hard Drive Tach - 32Mb Zones

     Once again the lag in performance we've seen in 8Mb zones disappears when testing the drive in 32Mb zones. The performance of the hard drives in RAID 0 is very impressive and even blows away the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1Tb hard drives when it comes to burst speed (see conclusion).

2x Hard Drive Test (RAID 0)
HD Tune: Read Only

     As for HD Tune, we are showing very comparable RAID 0 performance when comparing to the 7200.11 drives in RAID 0. HD Tune is even showing a noticeable performance increase in the "minimum" transfer rate over the 7200.11.

ES.2 vs. 7200.11 & Conclusion

     I know what you are thinking, how is it fair to compare a performance desktop hard drive to a enterprise level hard drive? The way I see it, I'm looking for performance and durability...and the Barracuda ES.2 delivers it all. Let's recap...

     When comparing the ES.2 to the 7200.11 in single hard drive performance, both are neck and neck. You could even argue that if you run the benchmarks enough times, the average scores would show both drives even performers. To be honest, I find this to be quite impressive. I really expected the 7200.11 to outperform the ES.2 in every area. 

     When comparing the ES.2 to the 7200.11 in RAID 0 configuration, things start to change a little bit. First of all the burst rate goes through the roof! But then the average read and write scores suffer a small hit. I can only imagine that this small drop in performance is due to Seagate's PowerTrim technology built into the Barracuda ES.2 series hard drives that is designed to selectively turn off unneeded functions during a given read/write/random/sequential cycle in order to save power. So over the time it takes to run a hard drive benchmark, the hard drive is actually trying to conserve power.

     Overall, I'm very impressed by Seagate's new Barracuda ES.2 hard drives. For any enterprise level hard drive to deliver the performance of a high end desktop hard drive is quite impressive. As for price, Seagate has these babies priced extremely competitively, especially if you dare try to compare these to the Cheetah SCSI hard drives. A typical Seagate Cheetah 15K5 with only 300 Gigabytes of space will run you about $700. So to be able to pick up an ES.2 hard drive with 1000 Gigabytes of space for only $350 is a steal! I can't prove that the ES.2 will outlast a typical desktop hard drive, but with Seagate standing behind these hard drives for 5 years, I'm more than willing to trust Seagate on this. Club Overclocker Recommended!

Note: Club Overclocker is now using a new rating system based on a score of 1 to 5.
Please go to our rating system page for more information.

Performance:	5 out of 5
Innovation:	5 out of 5
Quality:	5 out of 5
Stability:	5 out of 5
Aesthetics:	4 out of 5
Software/Drivers Pack:	N/A
Overclocking:	N/A
Value:	5 out of 5
Project Skill Level (5 being most difficult)	3 out of 5