| 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD ST4000DM000 |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Storage | |
| Written by Olin Coles | |
| Monday, 15 April 2013 | |
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Seagate Desktop HDD ST4000DM000 Review
Manufacturer: Seagate Technology LLC Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Seagate. Seagate has recently re-branded their consumer storage products, formerly named Barracuda, in time for the launch of their 15th-generation. The 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD (OEM model ST4000DM000, retail kit STBD4000400) features a SATA 6Gb/s interface with Native Command Queueing (NCQ). Eight data heads read and write to four 1GB disc platters which enable 625Gb/in2 areal density. Cached by 64MB DRAM, this 5900 RPM hard disk drive is specified to move files at 180 MB/s sustained data rate. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests performance and explores new features on the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD. The ST4000DM000/ST3000DM003 Seagate Desktop HDD series is designed for high-capacity personal computer storage needs. Seagate has also introduced a number of refined technologies to help improve overall hard drive performance, including: dual core 40nm processor technology, DDR2 DRAM buffer, and refined caching algorithms. An efficient 2A startup current combined with improved burst rate and sustained bandwidth could give Solid State Drive (SSD) components serious competition. Free manufacturer-supplied software tools such as Seagate SeaTools enables users to custom-define firmware parameters to enable performance features such as 'Short Stroke' and noise reduction.
Seagate Desktop HDD Features:
Seagate Desktop HDD Specifications:
Source: Seagate Technology LLC
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Comments
For what I want Yes, I'd have preferred 7,200. So am likely to look at other drives.
However if I was building an Online backup or Media store, then this drives might even be preferable. But 5,900 RPM typically means less heat & less power. The Perf drop is not that much, ~10%. So these would be fine as a target for backups or media (movies & music).
OR
they could also be balanced by SSD Drives. So you'd put your IO Intensive apps on the SSD & have them write their log files, diagnostic & audit output to these 4TB drives.
I hope this and the low spindle speed solves the problem with seagate drives clicking due to APM.
nice article as ever Olin Coles.
This HDD caters to the modern user. 4x 1TB platters seals the deal even more. Pair this with a 960GB Crucial M5 if you can and sleep on it.
2 year warranty is also a logical and acceptable compromise, as long as you are using this HDD for what it is supposed to be used for, non-intensive, non-exe files. The stress and speed of executing files, writing, reading becomes irrelevant.
If I have to find a negative, it would be when I install this HDD and shift my file library to it. That's probably going to take a longer time but it's a one-time thing.
Not sure where your head is at &/or who you are trying to abuse.
But I expect many are professional IT folks who read these reviews. They want more than a 2 disk home gaming system.
eg: Developers running very large virtual machines, perhaps with huge databases. Maybe emulating a an entire datacentre on a single dev workstation. Perhaps Graphic Designers who work on big animations. They use an entire SSD just to cache their active project.
These sorts of folks often have 4-8 disks in their "Home Server / Dev workstation." And rarely do they want to afford the cost of 10TB's of SSD's. Hence the need to balance &/or run NAS storage.
For them moving TB's of files is not a "one time thing"
These folks won't bother reading this review. That means I'm probably abusing you.
Over the years I've recommended the purchase of many 100's of enterprise class drives. Typically we only put them in servers. They cost more, if they aren't kept cool in an air-conditioned room can have a similar failure rate to the cheaper drives. So for developer workstations & technical home / demo systems, they get these style consumer drives.
Actually, These data centre folks, read all reviews.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Quite the opposite - it's a selling point. I have two Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 4TB and I am disappointed with how hot and noisy they run. The lower RPM Seagate looks perfect.
Speed is a non-issue when we're talking about HDD's - they are all slow, and it is a moot point whether one is "less slow" than the other. The price of 4TB is such that your typical buyers will be higher end, non-budget, users who can afford SSD's. I will not compromise by using HDD's - you get the right tools for your requirements, and for speed, one goes with SSD.
What I need in my HDD's is quiet, low power "large capacity" active storage, in a relatively compact package, to accompay my fast SSD's.
I am now putting Hitachi 7k4000's in most of my customer machines, with Constellation ES.3 or WD RE 4tb drives as an upgrade - these are for desktop machines with 4+ rotating drives and typically a 256gb SSD - which seems like a waste of money, but it appears to be the only way to get high capacity combined with reasonable access time.
Maybe the new WD SE series will be the way to go.
I am really disappointed that the 4TB Barracuda XT never seemed to appear other than in external drives destined for failure (with the access times crippled and no ventilation).