Seagate 1TB 7200.12 Hard Disk

Results Analysis and Final Thoughts

Despite some initial concerns regarding write speed and random access time results in our theoretical testing the Seagate 7200.12 1TB has seriously impressed us with its excellent performance throughout our testing. Read speeds are especially good and the Seagate bested the Samsung Spinpoint F1 again and again by margins of up to ten percent, something which was really brought home by the fantastic result when booting Windows Vista Home Premium, which the Seagate managed to accomplish a full five seconds faster than the competing Samsung.

In fact the only test in which the Seagate lost out to the Samsung 1TB was when copying 0.99GB of small MP3 files in our FC-Test MP3 file pattern benchmark, when it was a full two seconds, or over twenty five percent slower. While this might seem a little strange, especially considering the fact that this deficit was reversed in the large file ISO file pattern benchmark, it’s likely down to Seagate simply choosing to optimise the drive’s firmware for copying large rather than small files.

The Seagate 7200.12 was also pleasingly quiet and cool even under full load. It’s obviously not going to match the cool and quiet operation of Western Digital’s Caviar green 5,400RPM drives, but was audibly quieter (just) than the Samsung Spinpoint – the advantage of switching from a three to a two platter design.

Other than the small file copy tests though the Seagate was universally impressive during our real world testing, showing its superiority again and again. However, it’s important to stress that some of the margins of victory were extremely small - when loading Crysis for example the Seagate 7200.12 1TB is just one percent faster than the Samsung Spinpoint 1TB, hardly a sweeping triumph.



Nevertheless, Seagate has produced an excellent drive in the 7200.12 1TB which has succeeded in not only being an enormous improvement over the previous generation Seagate 1TB drive, but also in finally trumping Samsung’s much praised Spinpoint F1 on performance. The Spinpoint does however still have the edge when it comes to price, having launched well over a year ago and since dropping significantly in price to it’s now bargain price of just over £70. Comparatively the Seagate, while that little bit faster, sells for over £10 more than the Samsung, making it less attractive for those just looking for the maximum amount of storage for their money.

In fact it’s worth mentioning that it’s taken competing hard drive manufacturers over a year to finally match or better Samsung’s excellent Spinpoint F1 1TB drive, and while the Seagate 7200.12 is faster, we’d hoped for more considering the fifty percent increase in areal platter density. Call us greedy, but having waited a full year for a successor to the Spinpoint F1’s crown we’re a little underwhelmed by the relative jump in performance.

Still, the Seagate 7200.12 1TB is the fastest 1TB hard disk you can buy today, which is an accomplishment in itself, and at £84 it still represents solid value for money – you’re still getting an enormous amount of storage for your money after all. While it might not have been the stride forward in drive speed we’d hoped for this is still slightly faster and certainly worth considering.

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