Seagate Barracuda ATA V, Serial ATA Version

Seagate Barracuda ATA V SATA Capacities Model Number Capacity ST380023AS 80 GB ST3120023AS 120 GB Lowest Real-Time Price: Introduction Over the past year and half, Seagate's Barracuda ATA series has become a reader favorite due to its whisper-quiet operation. Though some competing drives offer better performance, many believe that the 'Cuda IV or V is fast enough and are willing to sacrifice that last bit of speed in exchange for quieter acoustics. Seagate announced both a traditional parallel ATA version of the 'Cuda V as well as one featuring a more contemporary serial ATA interface simultaneously. The parallel version, however, ended up hitting the channels much earlier. SATA 'Cuda Vs are only now becoming widely available.

For end users, the largest benefit of Serial ATA is not increased bandwidth (150 MB/sec vs. parallel's 133 MB/sec) but rather ease of installation and configuration. Thinner and more flexible cabling permits easier integration into systems; parallel ATA cables occupy much space and significantly hinder a case's airflow. This thinner cabling in turn permits significantly smaller connectors. These connectors attach and detach much more easily than their 40-pin predecessors. Further, since these ports occupy much less real estate, manufacturers may place many more within the same PCB area. This in turn permits a simpler single-device-per-port paradigm and does away with the cumbersome master-slave setup that has saddled ATA for more than 15 years. The power connector on SATA drives has also changed. Gone is the arduous 4-pin Molex power connector. In is a thin, much more workable 15-pin edge connector. Like the data connector, this new power connector attaches and detaches much more easily.

To test Serial ATA drives, we have added a Promise SATA150 TX4, a four-port SATA controller to our testbed. The adapter's bios and driver are initial release versions (v1.00.0.20 and v1.00.0.14 respectively). Promise also supplied us with a few SATA data cables as well as some adapters that convert a standard power supply's Molex connectors to the new SATA edge connector standard.

The SATA Barracuda V, like its predecessor, features up to two 60 GB/platters yielding a flagship capacity of 120 GB. Interestingly, Seagate claims a 9.0 ms seek time for this drive, 0.4 milliseconds less than the PATA version. This drive bumps up buffer size from 2 to 8 megabytes. As a result, it is important to note that any performance differences that arise are more likely due to the larger buffer size and not the increased headroom provided by the SATA spec. The drive is backed by a standard 1-year warranty, a length 2 years shorter than 8 MB ATA drives from Western Digital and IBM.

Let's see how Seagate's latest measures up!