Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive

Taking a little from column A and a little from column B, the Barracuda 7200.11 rolls in with four 250GB platters complemented by 32MB of cache and a 7,200-RPM spindle speed. Throw in a five-year warranty that you don't get with either the Deskstar or the Caviar, and it looks like this latest 'cuda may have been worth the wait.

To find out for sure, we've run Seagate's latest through an exhaustive series of tests, comparing its performance, noise levels, and power consumption with more than 20 other hard drives. Keep reading to see how the 7200.11 stacks up.