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Seagate Barracuda V Serial ATA Drive Reviewed

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the first-to-market dept.

Mike Parsons writes "Andrew and Adam over at Explosive Labs have a nice review up on the Seagate Barracuda V, one of the first production Serial ATA drives. Keep in mind, Generation 1 of Serial ATA was not meant to be a 'incredible performance jump.' Rather, its intended purpose was to make the industry transition seamless to allow time to mature the future generations of SATA. Generation 2 and 3 of SATA show more promise for those interested in performance, as white papers behind them gives you the nice fuzzy feeling for speed!"

12 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. 15-Pin Power Connector? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    What's all that about then?

    Hardware monitoring maybe?

    Is there some new power standard about to be unleashed on us?

  2. Performance? That's not why I want it... by MartyJG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not so much interested in the performance advantages of S-ATA, rather the fact that it finally kills off ribbon cables. It must be the most limiting factor inside any desktop PC. In my tower I have trouble making even long cables reach drives at the top of the case, so they have to be mounted halfway down. In my Shuttle XPC the cables are shorter, but even they have to be 'rounded' and routed around clips to reach the combo drive without taking up all the space inside. Other people complain about the airflow restrictions several ribbon cables cause inside a machine.

    In short, I don't care that (Gen-1) S-ATA starts at 150mb transfer instead of 'older' 133mb. I care that it makes building a PC easier, more space inside future barebones machines and PC manufacturers can use more interesting cases than the usual rectangular stuff. I'm excited about the possibilities it offers right now.

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    1. Re:Performance? That's not why I want it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      This is something related to comments I've made a few times earlier. When it comes to customising machines, the exterior gets all the treatment, and the interior often ends up at best, a mess of glowing wires in the light of a cold cathode lamp. Some of the best custom cars I've seen have stunning hidden wiring tricks, so an engine bay looks to be just a block hanging in space, or a dashboard is nothing but 2 gauges and a steering column. It's a great effect for minimising visual distraction when creating a whole package.

      Yes, I'm looking at the aesthetic point of view, which has some big possibilities - the less space taken with airflow-restricting ribbon cables is a huge bonus I can't neglect to mention either.

    2. Re:Performance? That's not why I want it... by b1t+r0t · · Score: 3, Interesting
      It must be the most limiting factor inside any desktop PC. In my tower I have trouble making even long cables reach drives at the top of the case, so they have to be mounted halfway down.

      You really ought to look inside the case of a current PowerMac tower sometime, just to see how unobtrusive ribbon cables can be, if some though it put into the case design. They've done an amazing job of designing the thing to keep ribbon cables out of the way. Even the otherwise horrible 8100 case design of years ago had good cable routing.

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      "Open source is evil." - Microsoft
  3. New power connector? by Pastey · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is the first review I've seen of the new SATA drives that made mention of this.

    Anyone know why this was implemented? The article (now /.'ed) doesn't explain the reasoning, just that it exists. Why get rid of the old MOLEX? Since an adapter is included with the drive it doesn't seem that there are any new voltages required. What's the deal?

    Is this just another one of those PITA upgrades?

  4. Wait to buy? by brejc8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What do people think is going to happen to the price of old ATA drives once the serial drives kick in?
    Are they gonna tumble down in price as the hard disk is usually one part of the computer that you move to the upgraded PC and so you will want to get the serial ones to ensure you can still use them later. This will make the old disks nice and cheap. (like SDRAM)
    Or will the old disks become so rare that they are more expencive than the new versions (Like old EDO SIMMs).

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    1. Re:Wait to buy? by ultrabot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My experience is that when you upgrade your system, moderately priced hd's are so much bigger than your current hd that it's hardly worth the trouble to move your old disk to the new system, except to transfer your old data to the newly acquired hd (and have around as a nice 'backup' drive).

      I don't think parallel ATA driver will get any cheaper than usual. More probable is that SATA will remain an expensive option for a while, until it is the default option on new motherboards. At some point they will stop manufacturing normal ATA drives in high volumes, and they will get expensive as SIMMS nowadays.

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    2. Re:Wait to buy? by hatchet · · Score: 2, Interesting

      When companies stop making ATA drives they'll get a bit cheaper. When they become rare(which will happen quite fast.. think EDO SIMM fast).. they'll be more expensive than SATA.
      SDR SDRAM is still mass produced because lots of things use it. (handheld devices, portable mp3 players, ...) And technology is basically the same as DDR's (Actually DDR is SDRAM too). Most such deviuces do not need aditional speed DDR offers.
      EDO SIMM is obsolette it isn't used much anymore.. SDRAM replaced it.

  5. Great and not so great features by hcdejong · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yay! No more jumpers! The days of mechanical configuration are finally drawing to a close!

    But why did they include a new power connector? Specifically, a 15-pole connector not used in any current computers, with only 4 power leads going into it?

    Oh, and the 'review' reads like a press release. They claim independence, but are they really?

  6. ??? Well... I don't know about that. by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And IEEE1394 is just serial SCSI, so why bother with that technology, just buy Ultra-LVD SCSI drives, operators are available right now.

    The point is serial ATA is a simple ATA-style replacement. The drives will be cheap because the controllers will be cheap.

    Firewire (or SCSI) are not cheap. They are not an equivalent product. Sure, it's BETTER, but it comes at a price some are not willing to pay for an desktop, MP3 server or what have you.

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  7. not meant to be a 'incredible performance jump? by kmurray24 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    God forbid we get any kind of substantial performance leap all at once... Might drive the prices down too early.. ;)

  8. Re:Serial? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Now why couldn't they just have used Firewire without doing a knock off of it?

    If they just went with firewire, we'd still need converters for about the same price, and with all that mass production, firewire would be the same cost.
    The same ATA protocol can go over firewire.

    Then we would not be stuck INSIDE the case; would only need 1 type of controller chip, and could do non-hard drive related things with those busses...
    Saving us money, size, power, heat, on the motherboards!

    Besides isn't firewire multiple frequency? Meaning that the 100,200,400,800 mbps serial speeds do not interfere with each other.