Seagate Pipeline HD Pro 1TB Hard Drive

If our 1TB sample was any indication, Seagates entire Pipeline series would be a fine fit for any system where quiet operation is valued. It was significantly quieter than Seagate's other high capacity drives, both idle and during seek. It is unfortunate we no longer have a Western Digital Green Power sample to compare it to in our anechoic chamber — we expect the results would have been close. It should be noted that the overall noise the drive generates alone does not reflect how quiet it will be in a typical PC with a hard-mounting system. Our sample had a high level of vibration — this is one area where the Pipeline HD Pro cannot compete against the Green Power. A good suspension system would level the playing field in this regard.

The drive's read speeds were excellent, but random access time was very poor at 17 ms. This is one of the reasons for its low noise level, especially during seek. For media-type applications, it does not need to be blazing fast so Seagate decided to trade away some performance for quieter operation. The Pipeline HD Pro, being a 3-platter drive, was also fairly power efficient, at least for a 7200 RPM model.