Seagate Barracuda 7200 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive ST3500418AS-Bare Drive

by Seagate

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 4 x 1 inches ; 14.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001VKYA5E
• Item model number: ST3500418AS
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (611 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 1, 2009

Product Description

Capacity: 500 GB

From the Manufacturer

Seagate® Barracuda® drives deliver reliable service and high performance. The Barracuda family has been developed and refined over 12 generations and embodies the highest levels of design for reliability and performance. While Barracuda LP is the low power leader, the entire family of Barracuda drives lead with environmental friendly storage. Typically 70 percent or more of the materials used in each drive are recycled as well as being RoHS compliant. With capacities from 160GB all the way to 2TB, and cache sizes up to 64MB, there is Barracuda drive to fit your needs. Whether it's mainstream PC, high-end PC, gaming PC, desktop RAID or storage for USB/FireWire/eSATA connected external, Seagate offers a Barracuda drive for every need.

Seagate® Barracuda® 3.5-Inch Internal Drive

What the experts are saying...

Performance and reliability for everyone Working with huge files has never been easier. That's because the Seagate Barracuda drive is incredibly fast, and offers all the storage space you need. Best of all, Seagate reliability is built in. The Seagate Barracuda 3.5-inch Internal Drive is perfect for replacing or expanding your desktop drive capacity in: Desktop PCs and Macs Workstations Direct- and network-attached external storage devices PC-based game systems Home servers Why Choose the Seagate Barracuda drive Lowers your storage costs without sacrificing performance Gives you all the storage capacity you need, from 160GB up to 1.5TB Features a fast 7200-RPM drive that delivers sustained transfer rates of up to 125MB/s Delivers the optimum mix of performance and energy efficiency thanks to perpendicular recording technology, a SATA 3Gb/s interface, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), and up to 32MB cache Ensures whisper-quiet operation, reduced power consumption and heat generation Includes Seagate�s proven, industry-leading reliability

“First two platter 1TB drive; wicked fast. Beats previous contender easily.” -Maximum PC, July 2009 “Blazing fast speeds, silent, cool, energy efficient” 2009 Editors choice award. -TechTree, April 2009 “Strong performance and noticeably quieter than its predecessor. The Barracuda 7200.12 1TB is more than good enough for an OS drive, but also good bottomless storage for your movies and music.” -PC Authority, September 2009 “Over the period of about 4 weeks of brutal testing, I was unable to find any issues or anomalies in their performance. The Barracuda 7200.12 hard drives appear to be the real deal with solid performance at an excellent price. Club Overclocker Recommended.” -Club Overclocker, March 2009 “The Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB hard drive is speedy and offers good value. If you need 1TB of data storage in a single drive, this is worth considering.” -Good Gear Guide, April 2009 “Considering price, performance, and energy efficiency, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB hard drive earns the Bigbruin.com award of "Recommended".” -Big Bruin, April 2009

	Seagate is thinking green. "Seagate had already begun demanding 'full materials disclosure' of its suppliers, requiring them to report all the chemicals present in their products, when Apple came knocking with its new orders in 2007." � Peter Burrows, BusinessWeek

Seagate® Barracuda® Family Hard Drives: Desktop storage for every need

Barracuda Drive Specifications

Specifications	1.5 TB1	1 TB1	750 GB1	500 GB1	320 GB1	250 GB1	160 GB1
Model Number	ST31500341AS	ST31000528AS	ST3750528AS	ST3500418AS ST3500410AS	ST3320418AS	ST3250318AS	ST3160318AS
Interface Options	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ	SATA 3Gb/s NCQ
Performance
Transfer Rate, Max Ext (MB/s)	300	300	300	300	300	300	300
Sustained Data Rate OD (MB/s)	120	125	125	125	125	125	125
Cache (MB)	32	32	32	16	16	8	8
Average Latency (ms)	4.16	4.17	4.17	4.17	4.17	4.17	4.17
Spindle Speed (RPM)	7200	7200	7200	7200	7200	7200	7200
Configuration/Organization
Bytes per Sector	512	512	512	512	512	512	512
Reliability/Data Integrity
Contact Start-Stops	50,000	50,000	50,000	50,000	50,000	50,000	50,000
Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14	1 per 10E14
Annualized Failure Rate	0.34%	0.34%	0.34%	0.34%	0.34%	0.34%	0.34%
Limited Warranty (years)	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
Power Management
Startup Current +12V Peak (A, ±10%)	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
Operating, Average (W)	<10.8	<9.4	<9.4	<8.0	<8.0	<8.0	<8.0
Idle, Average (W)	<8.3	<5.0	<5.0	<5.0	<5.0	<5.0	<5.0
Environmental
Temperature (�C)
Operating	0 to 60	0 to 60	0 to 60	0 to 60	0 to 60	0 to 60	0 to 60
Nonoperating	�40 to 70	�40 to 70	�40 to 70	�40 to 70	�40 to 70	�40 to 70	�40 to 70
Shock (Gs)
Operating: 2 ms	70	70	70	70	70	70	70
Nonoperating: 1 ms	300	300	300	350	350	350	350
Acoustics (bels � sound power)
Idle	2.6	2.5	2.5	2.6	2.6	2.6	2.6
Seek	2.7	2.7	2.7	2.75	2.75	2.75	2.75
Physical
Height (in/mm)	1.02/26.11	1.02/26.1	1.02/26.1	0.78/20	0.78/20	0.78/20	0.78/20
Width (in/mm)	4.00/101.6	4.00/101.6	4.00/101.6	4.00/101.6	4.00/101.6	4.00/101.6	4.00/101.6
Depth (in/mm)	5.78/146.99	5.787/146.99	5.787/146.99	5.787/146.99	5.787/146.99	5.787/146.99	5.787/146.99
Width (in/mm)	1.4/0.64	1.4/0.64	1.4/0.64	1.2/0.54	1.2/0.54	1.2/0.54	1.2/0.54

1 One gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes and one terabyte, or TB, equals one trillion bytes when referring to hard drive capacity.

How much will it store?
Capacity	Digital Music (Hours)	Digital Photos (Files)	Digital Videos (Hours)	DVD Quality (Movies)	HD Video (Hours)
160 GB	2,666	51,200	160	40	40
250 GB	4,165	80,000	250	63	63
320 GB	5,331	102,400	320	80	80
500 GB	8,330	160,000	500	125	125
640 GB	10,662	204,800	640	160	160
750 GB	12,495	240,000	750	188	188
1.0 TB	16,660	320,000	1,000	250	250
1.5 TB	24,990	480,000	1,500	375	375
		Average file size using cameras highest resolution JPEG mode		Based on standard 2 hour movie	Based on H.264 compression at a 6.75Mbs bitrate

 

		Users can expect a performance boost when using Seagate hard drives with Windows 7 Windows 7 has shown to use fewer hard drive resources for system boot and general OS operations, speeding up overall performance and leaving more storage resources for applications. Cache efficiency has improved. Customers who choose Seagate drives with bigger cache options will see added benefit. Seagate testing confirms improved performance from Windows Vista to Windows 7 on like hard drives with only cache size differences.

Product Description

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 drive delivers excellent power savings without sacrificing performance, giving customers the ability to manufacture PC systems and external storage systems that meet energysavings requirements. The drive combines proven technology with expert manufacturing to deliver up to 1 TB of desktop storage. With the Barracuda 7200.12 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 per-hard-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. The Barracuda product family complies with the Restriction of Hazardous Substance (RoHS) directive that limits the use of hazardous materials in electronic goods.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

282 of 302 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I believe problems are resolved !, December 6, 2008

By 

Honest Guy "geffroman" (Huntington Beach, Ca USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate Barracuda 7200 1.5 TB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive ST31500341AS-Bare Drive (Personal Computers)

NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED:
I've watched the issue with these drives carefully for about 2 months. It looks like Seagate solved the problem and that a vocal few were ever really affected. By few I mean relative to the thousands sold. And I am not defending Seagate. This whole fiasco was unacceptable.

MY SYSTEM:
I picked up 8 of these drives. I'm running them in 4 separate DLink DNS-321 RAID boxes. I've copied about 4TB of data back and forth across them for days. My only firmware update needed was for the DLink so that it could properly handle the new 1.5TB drives.

In the end I believe all is well with both the drives and the DLink DNS-321. I will of course update this review immediately if I see any problems.

PERFORMANCE:
We are able to watch movies from this drive arrangement on 3 computers simultaneously across a 100mb network from the same drive while adding new files to the drive from a 4th computer.

This means I can be adding movies unattended to the system while watching an Epic Man movie on the plasma in the living room... while the kids are watching Monsters Inc in the bedroom... and the wife is off watching some chic flick in the Den. :)

The combination of DLink and these 1.5TB drives is fantastic and seems as stable as the WD 1TBs I was using previously.

PROPER DIAGNOSIS:
Don't confuse your drive DIEING after a week with the previous firmware problems of this particular drive. Blame the vendor that shipped the drive like it could bounce !

ON A SIDE NOTE:
I will say I am sick of Amazon, Tiger and other vendors shipping hard drives like they are indestructible ROCKS. Even if they arrive working, this inadequate packaging is certainly taking years off the life of our drives. One of my 8 arrived DEAD as a brick thanks to this nonsense. I am furious about this issue !

Will it take a class action to stop this behavior of guaranteeing future drive sales by damaging todays drives through deliberate mishandling of our purchases ?! Wake up AMAZON ! Wake up TIGER !

UPDATE: Dec 14 2009
One year later, I own 22 of these drives now. 12 are running daily in DNS-321 Raid boxes. The other 10 are used as back up drives in a drop in SATA adapter. No failures since 2 in the first few weeks, I believe due to poor packaging. About 6 of my drives came with the BAD firmware. I never had issues with that either. Call me blessed. I just think the DNS-321 and these drives work very well together.

UPDATE: Jan 8 2011
Another year passes and most of my 1.5TBs have all been pulled from DNS-321 RAID boxes and used as loose backup drives in a drop in SATA adapter. I've replaced them with the larger Seagate 2TB drives for larger capacity. NO FAILURES OF EITHER DRIVE 1.5TB or 2TB ! I have a couple Hitachi's and WD 2TBs. The Seagate drives are quieter and come off sleep in my RAID boxes faster than the other brands. All are used for video streaming over a network and do a fantastic job.

TIGER has been shipping drives MUCH BETTER. Amazon packagers have sent me drives packed poorly just 2 months ago. I requested replacements and Amazon handled the no charge exchange well. But they should NOT have been shipped that way.

372 of 407 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Works fine after applying firmware update, November 2, 2008

By 

John (ISSAQUAH, WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seagate Barracuda 7200 1.5 TB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive ST31500341AS-Bare Drive (Personal Computers)

Update: I wrote this review before a firmware update was made available and my comments reflect the situation at the time. When the updates were made available, I flashed my 5 drives and they've been working fine ever since. I'd change the rating to a 4 star if the editor allowed.

I and many others have been experiencing serious problems with these drives including:

* dropping out of RAID configurations for no apparent reason
* being ejected from a RAID configuration due to read / write errors
* freezing for up to 30 seconds

These problems have been reported on Linux, Vista, XP, and OS X and appear to be related to how the drives flush their write cache. In many cases, the drives work fine for days or weeks before problems appear. In my case, I bought five of these for my Qnap TS-509 Pro and they worked great for about two weeks under various read / write loads. Since then, I've had all three of the problems mentioned above on different drives and they are growing progressively worse. The latest problem was three of the five drives disappearing from the RAID5 volume while I was attempting to copy the files to a different NAS.

A work-around that has been successful for some is to disable the disk write cache. Other than the obvious performance penalty and reduced lifespan this causes, some systems do not provide a means of disabling disk write cache (such as the Qnap).

References to these problems can be found on many forum threads:

Qnap: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=142&t=8826
Netgear: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=20435&start=60&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
Synology: http://www.synology.com/enu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&p=47101
AVSForum: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1080005
macrumors: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=571843
Ubuntu: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=933053
Slashdot: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1003109&cid=25458241
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B00066IJPQ/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

The most informative thread may be found on Seagate's own support forum, where it appears Seagate is blaming everyone but themselves for the problem:

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=2390&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

90 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Updated firmware now available!, November 20, 2008

By 

Ralph E. Richardson (Wayzata, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seagate Barracuda 7200 1.5 TB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive ST31500341AS-Bare Drive (Personal Computers)

Here's the "consumable" snippet from an email that was sent to tech support/sales/AE's, etc.:

Seagate 1.5TB Customers,

Some Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB hard drives may show uncharacteristic
operation when used with Mac and Linux operating systems in multi-drive
configurations. Users may experiences pauses in video streaming applications
or a dropped drive from RAID arrays. Customers seeing these symptoms should
contact Seagate Technical Support for a firmware upgrade.

In order to assure the proper application of the new firmware, please email a
description of the issues youre seeing to Seagate ([...])
Please include the following disk drive information: model number, serial
number and current firmware revision. Also, please describe your
system,operating system and the application in use when the issue arose. We
will respond, promptly, to your email request with appropriate instructions.

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