Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1 TB SATA 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Hard Drive ST31000333AS

by Seagate

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 4 x 5.8 x 1 inches ; 1.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001NGOIJO
• Item model number: ST31000333AS
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (110 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 14, 2008

Product Description

Capacity: 1 TB

The Barracuda 7200.11 drive delivers up to 43 percent power savings over the previous Seagate desktop generation without sacrificing performance, giving customers the ability to manufacture PC systems and external storage systems that meet energy-savings requirements. Like all other Seagate drives, the Barracuda 7200.11 product family complies with the Restriction of Hazardous Substance (RoHS) directive that limits the use of hazardous materials in electronic goods.With the Barracuda 7200.11 drive, our customers can have the best of both worlds¿top hard-drive performance and a high-capacity drive with a very small eco-footprint. Seagate is committed to minimizing the impact of our products and operations on the environment. We have implemented production efficiency measures, such as replacing or renovating less-efficient equipment, resulting in a 20 percent increase in production efficiency on a perhard-drive basis. In just six months this delivered a savings of 158.93 million kWh, or enough energy to power nearly 15,000 U.S. homes for one year. Seagate also has deployed aggressive waste minimization and recycling programs in facilities worldwide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good 1TB drive choice, January 3, 2009

By 

Snap, Crackle and Pop (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1 TB SATA 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Hard Drive ST31000333AS (Personal Computers)

UPDATE: A newer generation of this drive, the 7200.12, Bulk/OEM version, has been available for a while now and has better performance in terms of speed and power consumption. So that's likely a better option.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

As of now, this is the state of the art Seagate 1TB drive. It uses just three drive platters (the thing that looks like a compact disc in the photo - there's actually a stack of those inside your hard drive!). Older 1TB drives used 4 or even 5 platters.

Less platters means greater data density, which means faster data transfer speeds. Less platters also means cooler operating temperatures, usually.

The 7200.11 line of drives uses 333GB platters. The new 7200.12 drives with 500GB platters is starting to be released - a one platter, 500GB drive is available now. A two platter 1TB drive should be out sometime in the next month or two.

By the way, a few notes about OEM / bulk drives:

- OEM or bulk means it comes in plain packaging, with no software, screws or cables. If you're replacing a drive, that may not be a problem. But if it's a new installation, you'll need a SATA data cable and (often) a power adapter.

- As of 1/3/2009, Seagate has reduced the warranty on their OEM hard drives from 5 years to 3 years. Not a big deal to me, as after 3 years I'm not going to pay to return the drive and put the 3+-year-old model refurbished drive I get back in my machine anyway. The real issue is, what's the reliability of the drive, so you don't need the warranty? It's very hard to get a good answer on that.

Many people would say buy a Seagate, Western Digital, or Hitachi drive, and after that, it's a roll of the dice. Certainly making sure your fans are working and you clean out the dust bunnies helps!

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars My last 750G Seagate lasted 0.9 years. This 1T Seagate lasted 3 weeks., January 17, 2009

By 

Bearie Luv Amazon "bearieamazon" (Pasadena, CA) - See all my reviews

I'm in the IT industry and have had installed, swaped, formated hundreds of hard drives in my life. Hard drive failure is normal, and it's expected. What I've found out is that MTBF that manufacturers publish has very little correlation with reality, since reality is affected by factors such as temperature, handling, etc. What they publish is in a perfect laboratory environment-- not what people normally have at home. In my past, I have used Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, and Hitachi. Seagate has alway been high on my list because of their reliability and their 5 year warranty.

Personally, reliability is a huge concern for me because I take tons of precious pictures of my family & baby and I cannot afford to lose them. That's why I always build RAID systems with different drives from different manufacturers, and in certain cases same manufacturer but with very different batches. After only 3 weeks, this drive failed. Since it was on a raid system, no big deal. I swapped in another drive, and it to Amazon. My other 750G failed after a year's use. That's 2 Seagate failures within 30 days of timespan-- not a good impression so far.

Let's compare the latest Seagate with the latest Western Digital technologies. My Green 1T WD drives have been running for a few months without any problems so far. It's by far the quietest drives I've ever gotten, certainly much quieter than any of the Seagate Barracuda drives. It's also the most vibration free drives (Seagate is a bit noisier) and cool running-- heat shortens the lifespan of everything. The return policy for WD is much more hastle free-- you put in your credit card number and they'll hold the fees, and mail you a new drive immediately until you return the defective one, upon which they'll refund the credit card fees. Compare that to Seagate's return policy where they want to CHARGE you a set amount of cost if you want them to send you a replacement while you still have the defective drive.

Seagate used to be well known for its quality in the early 90s. I used to trust them exclusively, but throughout the years their quality has decreased tremendously, and I no longer recommend using them. It happened to Maxtor in the early days when megabytes were a lot (Maxtor drives were notoriously bad in the 80s). I guess every good successful company, in their quest to drive up more and more profits, take shortcuts to make more money and eventually shoot them in the foot.

Guess what, SlashDot has a headline "Seagate Hard Drive Fiasco Grows." Ha! I am not surprised. Sorry, but Seagate is just not living up to its reputations anymore. Your 5 year warranty is useless when you can't recover precious data such as pictures of your family/baby. Regardless of how good a manufacturer is, I cannot emphasize how important it is to building RAID-1, or at MINIMUM do thorough backups every once in a while. You'll be protecting hundreds of man-hours for your corporation (if this is for corporate use), and hundreds of tears for your family (for family use).

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 HD's Alarming Fail Rate, September 1, 2009

By 

Renaissance Girl (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1 TB SATA 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Hard Drive ST31000333AS (Personal Computers)

I purchased a computer in December 2008 that contained a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 HD. The HD worked terrifically and I had no complaints about it for the first 9 months that I owned it (much longer than most people have owned one before leaving a 4 or 5 star review!!!) but the HD just now failed (August 2009). The disk does not spin and the computer does not recognize that a hard drive even exists, not even attempting to access it. The data is not recoverable by the usual data recovery processes, meaning recovery must be done in a lint-free environment at a cost of $2,500 or more. Based on the research I have done since the hard drive failed, it is apparent that the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 HDs are failing at an alarming rate (reportedly estimated upwards of around 30-40% by some data recovery experts.) While Seagate denies that the 7200.11 HDs are defective, those issuing RMAs are apparently being instructed to have the failed 7200.11 HDs sent to Seagate for replacement with the 7200.12 HDs, rather than having the 7200.11 HDs repaired. This appears to me, and many others with failed 7200.11 HDs, a silent acknowledgement by Seagate that the 7200.11 drives are defective and non-repairable. Do not believe that this issue is resolved, or can be resolved, as Seagate doesn't even appear to believe that. If you are considering buying a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 HD, don't. If you already have one, back up all of your files immediately and replace your hard drive with something else! I wouldn't have even given 1 star if that were possible.

2115|RKAXLBRO3K63U;2115|R1K64EYIYL6FOV;2115|R1CI7XRXR0LKOQ;