3 TB Hard Disk Drives Roundup

Each of the three tested 3-terabyte drives is good in its own way. The Seagate Barracuda XT is an all-purpose drive which is especially good at server loads. It is a shame it is not available as a standalone product. The Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 is already selling in retail, being a well-balanced continuation of the company’s 5-platter traditions. Although not as good at server loads as the Seagate, it is faster with small files and somewhat more economical, which is good for home users. As for Western Digital, their Green series product is good as static storage. And don’t forget that this 5400RPM drive is only slow compared to the 7200RPM models of the new generation. It can deliver the same performance as the previous-generation 7200RPM products and has fast read/write heads to compete with today’s 7200RPM drives in the IOMeter: Database pattern, for example.

We should note that installing 3TB drives may be difficult unless you run Windows 7. You should take a look at the informational materials from the HDD makers to see if your computer supports GPT partitions and whether your disk controller can work with 3TB disks.

And we are now waiting for 3TB drives not covered in this review: a WD Caviar Black and a 3TB HDD from Samsung.