Seagate Cheetah 10K.7

Note: Since the publication of this review, this drive has been retested under Testbed4, a newer hardware/software/benchmark platform. Please see this article for updated results. This review remains for reference purposes only.

Seagate Cheetah 10K.7 Capacities Model Number Capacity ST373207LW 73 GB ST3146707LW 147 GB ST3300007LW 300 GB Lowest Real-Time Price: Introduction Seagate's 10,000 RPM Cheetah has come a long way. The manufacturer's mainstay was originally introduced as a unique 4.5 GB drive that pushed the spindle speed envelope. Although competitors eventually caught up and though the series was supplanted by the 15K Cheetah when it came to performance, the 10K line nonetheless remained the capacity workhorse of the firm's lineup. It's been over two years since the Cheetah 10K.6 hit the streets. Finally, its successor has arrived.

The Cheetah 10K.7 retains the line's signature 4-platter construction and pushes density to 75 GB/platter for a 300 GB flagship capacity. When contrasted with the 10K.6, however, other specs remain similar- a 4.7 millisecond access time and an eight-megabyte buffer.

Seagate has at long last moved its 10K RPM series exclusively to fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) motors. Through less metal-to-metal contact, FDB motors improve the drive's shock resistance and decrease idle noise. The firm also claims additional subtle across-the-board improvements in the manufacturing process and raises the drive's mean time between failure rating from the 10K.6's 1.2 million hours to a new high of 1.4 million hours. An industry-standard five year warranty backs the drive.

The Cheetah 10K.7 represents an interesting juncture for the storage giant. While it again doubles 3.5" SCSI hard disk space to a capacious 300 gigabytes, Seagate has signaled its belief that demand for gigabytes per spindle is giving way to a newer paradigm of spindles per cubic foot. As a result, they have signaled that the 10K.7 is the end of the line for its venerable 10K Cheetah with the svelte 2.5' Savvio positioned as the Cheetah's heir-apparent.

Like the Savvio 10K.1 and Cheetah 15K.4, Seagate's SeaTools Enterprise utility can toggle the 10K.7 from a default, server-intended setting that dynamically adjusts the number and size of buffer segments to a static configuration (32 segments) more appropriate for desktop performance. The 10K.7 joins the Savvio and 15K.4 in exhibiting significant differences between the two segmentation strategies. Thus, the charts that follow present results for both "Desktop" (static segmentation) and "Server" (dynamic segmentation) modes.

In the following tests, the Cheetah 10K.7 will be compared against the following drives for the following reasons:

Seagate Cheetah 10K.6 (147 GB)	Manufacturer's previous-generation unit
Fujitsu MAP3147 (147 GB)	Previous-generation competing unit
Hitachi Ultrastar 146Z10 (147 GB)	Previous-generation competing unit
Maxtor Atlas 10K V (300 GB)	Current-generation competing unit
Seagate Savvio 10K.1 (73 GB)	Manufacturer's 2.5" unit
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD (73 GB)	Enterprise-oriented 10K RPM 3.5" SATA drive