Seagate have introduced their first hard drive which supports the new SATA 3.0 specification. The Barracuda XT is the Seagate's first drive to use the new interface, which has a theoretical bandwidth of 6Gb/s - double that of the SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s) specification. The drive offers 2TB of storage space, using four platters, according to Seagate (via Techspot).
The 7200 RPM drive has a sustained data rate of 138MB/s – the fastest speed achieved by a 7200 RPM drive, Seagate claims. The 64MB cache provides "screaming burst rate speeds and improve[s] overall performance," according to their website. The drive is backward compatible with both the SATA 3Gb/s interface and the SATA 1.5Gb/s interface, although if you don't have a motherboard compatible with SATA 3.0 you're probably better off buying a slower, but cheaper 2TB hard drive if you don't plan on upgrading the motherboard anytime soon.
Aimed at enthusiasts, Seagate said "[the] Barracuda XT offers capacity coupled with high speed which will definitely appeal to performance enthusiasts in video editing, multi-media publishing and, of course, PC gaming." According to an article by Techspot, the hard drive will have an MSRP of $299, potentially making it appealing to those looking for a large, fast storage device to complement an SSD.
Whether or not the new SATA interface will convince enthusiasts to spend out remains to be seen, considering that SSDs have come down in price (a 100GB SSD would have cost around £300 eight months ago, compared to less than £200 now). You can find all the specifications of the Barracuda XT on the Seagate website.
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