Perhaps aggrieved by the fact that Western Digital became the first hard drive manufacturer to reach 2TB, Seagate today fired back with a drive that promises to be just as big, but quicker, too.
The Barracuda XT, pictured below with optional swirly stuff, is now shipping and claims to be the first drive to feature a SATA 6Gb/s interface.
The third-generation SATA interface, combined with a 7,200RPM rotational speed and 64MB of cache, makes this the world’s fastest, largest-capacity mainstream desktop hard drive to date, says Seagate.
Providing ample capacity are four 500GB platters, but the world's fastest hard drive remains no match for a solid-state alternative in terms of performance. Seagate quotes a sustained data transfer rate of 138MB/sec, a figure that sits comfortably within the 600MB/sec bandwidth limitation of SATA 6Gb/s.
The Barracuda XT is backward compatible with both SATA and SATA II, and we're told to expect the drive in stores later this month with an MSRP of $299 (roughly £185).
