Seagate BarraCuda ST2000DM008 2TB 7200 RPM 256MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive.......$49.99 w/fs

[daveybrat]

On sale and available at Newegg and Amazon:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E168221...gate&cm_re=2tb_seagate-_-22-184-773-_-Product

https://smile.amazon.com/Seagate-Ba...words=2tb+3.5&qid=1559512121&s=gateway&sr=8-3


Lowest price yet on this new 2TB 256MB cache model.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow, 256MB cache. Are these single-platter 2TB drives? I hope that they aren't SMR (shingled).

 

[daveybrat]

According to Seagate these drives are Heads/Disks 2/1

So 2 heads and a single platter.

 

[VirtualLarry]

WD really, really, should have a cheaper 7200RPM line of drives to compete with Seagate. All that they seem to have, is their venerable WD 1TB Blue 7200RPM, and then their Black drives, which are way, way, overpriced, for what they are. Seagate and Toshiba both have consumer-oriented 7200RPM HDDs. They may not be as quality (?) as WD or have as long a warranty as the Black drives, but at least they're affordable.

(That's one reason that I use Toshiba >1TB 7200RPM HDDs in "Gaming builds".)

 

[balloonshark]

Thanks. I grabbed one from Amazon. I hope this puppy is reliable. I'll be using it as my Steam game drive.

 

[cbn]

These are SMR drives.

However, one really good thing Seagate did was boost the URE spec---> https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...rracuda-and-non-pro-iron-wolf-drives.2563113/

(I am thinking of using these to build a performance oriented RAID-5 array and caching it with Optane for a large C drive)

 

[VirtualLarry]

If they are SMR drives, that disappoints me. I did read some time ago that Seagate was investing R&D on implementing internally-tiered storage into their magnetic HDDs, including flash, without labeling them in any was as a "Hybrid drive", or branded as a "FireCuda". The idea being, that they could implement SMR platters, and use the flash as a high-speed write-cache, along with some DRAM for the sector cache, etc.

However it works, I would like to see some performance numbers, I guess.

Btw, this is a "DM" drive, no? I thought that the SMR drives had a different moniker. Maybe not. Maybe there's a reason that the previous-gen drive costs more at Newegg.

I guess I'm opposed to SMR drives, more on principle, than practice, as I have yet to actually use them in a production system. They make sense for archival-type, WORM-type, backup-type, storage, certainly, and I wouldn't even mind using them in such a manner. But to use them for ordinary or OS drives, no way. Unless... maybe they become bearable as OS drives, if using something like StoreMI for AMD AM4 platforms, or RST for Intel platforms, as the SSD / fast-tier drive would take most of the brunt of things, and the SMR / HDD would only get the "cold" storage duties.

OTOH, if SMR and maybe HAMR / MAMR are combined, soon we might be able to get 10TB HDDs for $100-150, and then use them as the "slow tier" of a tiered storage arrangement. But they had better hurry up, as you can get 10TB WD Red 5400RPM HDDs, in EasyStore external desktop cases, for under $200 oftentimes.

 

[craggytabs]

I bought one and am returning it after reading this thread. Bummer about the SMR

 

[SamirD]

I bought one and am returning it after reading this thread. Bummer about the SMR

I'd check the spec sheets to see if this is really the case. I don't see any reason for a manufacturer to be using SMR on just a 2TB drive anymore.

I did read some time ago that Seagate was investing R&D on implementing internally-tiered storage into their magnetic HDDs, including flash, without labeling them in any was as a "Hybrid drive", or branded as a "FireCuda".

However it works, I would like to see some performance numbers, I guess.

I was checking out a spec sheet on some of the enterprise drives and it listed a feature like that, but it uses the flash moreless as a way to survive power disruptions without data loss and as a high speed write buffer.

But since a lot of innovations in consumer drives starts out at the high end in enterprise, I could see this getting perfected and then trickle down.

WD really, really, should have a cheaper 7200RPM line of drives to compete with Seagate. All that they seem to have, is their venerable WD 1TB Blue 7200RPM, and then their Black drives, which are way, way, overpriced, for what they are. Seagate and Toshiba both have consumer-oriented 7200RPM HDDs. They may not be as quality (?) as WD or have as long a warranty as the Black drives, but at least they're affordable.

(That's one reason that I use Toshiba >1TB 7200RPM HDDs in "Gaming builds".)

Back in the day, you had different tiers in quality of drives and pricing all over the board for the same size. As all the companies consolidated, a lot of this went away as the few remaining companies all competed for the same business.

In the last few years it's become obvious that WD and their acquired company HGST are the premium product in the marketplace. Toshiba also does make a lot of quality drives, but they are not retail focused vs the oem channel. And then that leaves Seagate, who once was the top of the heap by a long shot (you wouldn't dream of buying anything less than Seagate back in the day and WD was just consumer junk), who is now struggling to find its niche. If it finds a solid foothold on the low-end, that would definitely be a good thing for them as they would have a place for once. And with deals like this, it's easy to see that they can.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'd check the spec sheets to see if this is really the case. I don't see any reason for a manufacturer to be using SMR on just a 2TB drive anymore.

That's what I thought, too, back in the day when "AF" (Advanced Format, 512e sector sizes, requires alignment, not really compatible with WHS v1 and XP) came out. I thought, they wouldn't make AF drives in 500GB and 1TB sizes, surely. There would be no need.

Well, fast forward to today, and they do. (I don't know about the 500GB drives, but I think that most 1TB drives are AF these days.)

I had to go out and specifically purchase a shed-load of Hitachi 7200RPM 2TB HDDs, that weren't AF yet. They were kind of pricey. And I never did build that WHS v1 server. (Might have done a test install, but I wasn't happy with it.)

 

[SamirD]

Agreed that drive manufacturers do make some strange products in their lineup, but a plain-jane 2tb consumer drive shouldn't be smr--unless that's why it's so cheap--I've seen that too, like on the wd 10TB deal that I suspect are higher performance 10TB drives that were 'detuned' to be sellable.