Seagate Desktop HDD 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16 MB Cache 3.5"- Internal Drive Retail Kit (ST3500641AS-RK)

With multimedia devices, it's easy to use up disk space quickly. I swapped out a 3TB drive and copied everything over, and this should hold me over for a while. Since the heads need to move half as far to work with contiguous data, I expected the performance to be good, and it was.For multimedia, you don't need great speed but you do need space. This is in a media center PC with four tuners. The computer is on a network, so there might be people in several locations using this concurrently. Since the computer might be recording four shows at once, while somebody is watching another recording, and several more people are watching something over the network, that's a lot of data. If a 7GB file holds an hour of recorded TV, the computer has a full hour to read it, so the number of MB/second is still relatively small. If you are copying files across a network, you will want more speed, and if the device is heavily used, the more speed the better.I benchmarked this, and got an average read speed of 171 MB/s, with a minimum of over 100 MB/sec at the slow end. I could have done more extensive benchmarking, but for my purposes, the speed is already above and beyond what I need. I can copy a recorded TV show or movie and measure the time in seconds instead of minutes, and on a day to day basis, I have more than enough capability for now. Although the peak speed I got (a bit over 200 MB/sec at the small end) would have been considered average for an SSD, this gives far more for the money and is more than enough for its intended purpose.Five years ago, I had a total of 3TB on this computer. It has undergone many changes, including motherboard, processor, disk drives, etc. But one thing that keeps happening is that I run out of space. Fortunately, this drive is cheap enough per MB that if I do run out of room on my other drives, I can swap them out too. My other current drives are Seagate 4TB versions of this, and have been in constant daily use for a long time. They also give me good performance, and it's good to know that I'll have room to expand.

This is my third Seagate Barracuda HD and it replaces my second Seagate Barracuda HD (300GB capacity) which replaced my first one. Each one of these drives was replaced when I upgraded my Windows OS (Windows 98 to XP and the one being reviewed today took me from XP to 7). So, each case, the drive was replaced to accommodate a clean install of new windows OS. None of these drives has ever failed or had any kind of technical problem of any kind and I've never lost data from any of the three. It is remarkable how reliable these drives are. They are also extremely quiet, this current one being the quietest of all. I simply cannot hear it run inside the tower case. I have to remove the access panel on the mini-tower and put my ear near it to hear it at all. Some people say Seagate drives are too quiet. But to me, If you've ever heard another brand hard drive clicking and humming away inside a computer case, then you'll appreciate the quietness of a Seagate. In terms of price, Seagate drives are similarly priced compared to competitors WD and Maxtor. With unmatched reliability and competitive pricing, this unit is definitely a great value.Installation was easy and the supplied mounting screws were machined perfectly to the threading on the drive ports. The drive booted up immediately with no issues and the Windows 7 OS was up and running with twenty minutes. A great value!

Is it even possible for a single human being to accumulate 1TB of digital stuff worth storing? Honestly, I'm not really sure what to do with this much hard-drive. I'll just have to start hording pornography and downloading pirated movies.1TB is a huge capacity. Even our small office has yet to fill more than 250GB of our 1TB Server storage. Still, I've found its easier to buy more disk space than I'll need anytime soon and consolidating all my stuff on one drive. It's a little riskier, that's true, but if you have data you don't want to lose then you should be making backups anyway.BTW, this is a great price for the product. The local BB had the 16mb cache version for $180.00, and I was about to grab it but I checked on Amazon first and found the 32mb cache for just a few dollars more. Sweet deal.Seagate has a reputation as a reliable brand for storage drives, and I find they tend to run better than Maxtor and other "bargain" brands. That doesn't mean they won't crash on you, but it might improve your chances of getting a sturdy product.If you're worried about shipping, just remember that these drives don't show up in your local retail outlet's receiving bay nestled on soft pillows held aloft by angels. The Seagate packaging is tight, and the Amazon box is the usual deal with the plastic air packets. Good enough.Make sure you actually have a SATA connection. This is different from the usual 19-pin deal. Most new computers will use SATA, but if you're not sure what you've got then check it out before you toss this in the cart.