# 7200.12 500gb vs caviar black 500gb



## JanJan (Jan 24, 2010)

So what are your thoughts? I heard that the Seagate drive is faster but the Caviar Black has 32mb cache. Does that really matter tho?


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## Loosenut (Jan 24, 2010)

Not being a Seagate fan, I wouldn't know. See my system specs.

32Mb cache is nice but when in RAID0...


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## zithe (Jan 24, 2010)

The seagate 500gbs get like 130 read average. In Raid0, they're amazing.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 24, 2010)

Go with the cheaper one, you won't notice a difference between the two.


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## mlee49 (Jan 25, 2010)

Both are great drives, price and warranty should be larger factors since preformance differences are so minute.


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## JanJan (Jan 25, 2010)

i will be buying from buy.com
seagate is $60 shipped and caviar is $66 shipped. Caviar has 5 years warranty tho. Hmmm *pulling hair*


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## Soylent Joe (Jan 25, 2010)

Similar/same performance, close price, I'd go with the WD before the SG anyday.


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## lisburnni (Jan 25, 2010)

2x 7200.12 500gb in raid 0 , ICH9R , 32kb Stripe p35T DQ6







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## JanJan (Jan 25, 2010)

hey about if I throw in a samsung f3 500gb? I heard it being the fastest. Sorry for keep asking, I know I wont notice the difference but we all have the feel to use the best


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## newtekie1 (Jan 25, 2010)

JanJan said:


> i will be buying from buy.com
> seagate is $60 shipped and caviar is $66 shipped. Caviar has 5 years warranty tho. Hmmm *pulling hair*



I'd go with the Seagate and save the $6, in 3 years 500GB will be nothing, and probably won't be worth the hassle to even RMA the drive...


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## n-ster (Jan 25, 2010)

The access time in the 7200.12 Seagate usually is a put-off, making the WD faster overall... It depends on what you do though... If access time is less important and speed is more important, maybe the Seagate would be better for you, but in overall, the caviar black is better, so IMO go with the caviar black

btw, the reason for the speed increase for the Seagate is that is a 1 platter drive, vs 2 platters for WD, but the access time suffered


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## newtekie1 (Jan 25, 2010)

n-ster said:


> The access time in the 7200.12 Seagate usually is a put-off, making the WD faster overall... It depends on what you do though... If access time is less important and speed is more important, maybe the Seagate would be better for you, but in overall, the caviar black is better, so IMO go with the caviar black
> 
> btw, the reason for the speed increase for the Seagate is that is a 1 platter drive, vs 2 platters for WD, but the access time suffered



Average Seek Time on the WD Black 500GB is 4.2ms, average seek time on the Seagate 7200.11 500GB is 4.12ms...

You really won't notice the difference.


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## JanJan (Jan 25, 2010)

thanks guys. Ill wait for response from ebay guy if I can go through with the F3 500gb, if not then I guess Ill go with the Seagate.

btw, I have a WD 250gb WD2500JS right now, older model but still 7200rpm. It has 2 partition,1for os and program and other one for music and movies. 

After I got my new 500gb, what is the best course of action to take? (like use what drive for what, partition etc.)


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## n-ster (Jan 25, 2010)

Access time varies between 14.7 and 16.6 ms 

vs

12.5ms for the Caviar black... HUGE difference

IMHO you should go with the Caviar Black


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## newtekie1 (Jan 25, 2010)

n-ster said:


> Access time varies between 14.7 and 16.6 ms
> 
> vs
> 
> ...



BS, my 5900RPM LP drives get 13 ms access times, your trying to say the 7200RPM 7200.11 drive has worse access times...I think not...


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## zithe (Jan 25, 2010)

HDTach is not going to tell you your average  latencies. It's a test that lasts for a few minutes and it's all a pre-set series of commands to make it hard for your drive. HDTach is probably more intensive than anything you're going to be doing 24/7.


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## n-ster (Jan 25, 2010)

7200.1*2* has worse access times...

you probably meant 5400rpm btw

Tom's Hardware says so for access times

and btw, do a bit of research and you'll quickly see that the 7200.12 has horrible access time


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## n-ster (Jan 25, 2010)

> Seagate's new 'cuda has by far the slowest random access time we've seen from a contemporary desktop drive, trailing the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB by two milliseconds and the Caviar Black by more than five milliseconds. That might seem like the blink of an eye, but within the GHz confines of a modern PC, it's actually a rather long time


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## zithe (Jan 25, 2010)

Every other bench in the review shows the Seagate coming out on top. Don't know much about drives, though. It seems throughout the rest of it that the seagate is faster.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 25, 2010)

n-ster said:


> 7200.1*2* has worse access times...
> 
> you probably meant 5400rpm btw
> 
> ...



Yeah, and I'll believe Tom's reviews...well never...

And even if the Black gives better access times, again, you will not notice the difference.  The Black could be 5 ms faster, and the difference would be invisable.

And no, I did not mean 5400RPM, with a bit of research you would have seen that.


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## zithe (Jan 25, 2010)

It has 15% of a second lower access time, but is also 10-20% faster overall. Seems like it really wouldn't be any different.


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## n-ster (Jan 25, 2010)

zithe said:


> Every other bench in the review shows the Seagate coming out on top. Don't know much about drives, though. It seems throughout the rest of it that the seagate is faster.



Yes, I am not denying that it is usually faster MB/s wise, but that is no good if the access time sucks... sure it reads fast, but if it take forever to find what it wants to read...

So overall the Caviar black is better, but in some situations, the Seagate will destroy the Caviar Black

that chart and quote is from tech report (though i have no idea if they are good)

yea I just saw those 5900rpm drives...

Access time is the thing you NOTICE ALOT!

SSDs sometimes have worse write speeds by alot and almost on par with HDs read speeds, yet feel a heck of alot faster because of their 0.1 or 0.2ms Access time


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## Polaris573 (Jan 25, 2010)

JanJan said:


> So what are your thoughts? I heard that the Seagate drive is faster but the Caviar Black has 32mb cache. Does that really matter tho?



Maybe it depends on the drive but my 7200.12 has 32 MB cache.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 25, 2010)

n-ster said:


> Yes, I am not denying that it is usually faster MB/s wise, but that is no good if the access time sucks... sure it reads fast, but if it take forever to find what it wants to read...
> 
> So overall the Caviar black is better, but in some situations, the Seagate will destroy the Caviar Black
> 
> ...



Actually, in pretty much every situation the Seagate will be faster, but again the difference would be invisable. 

Access time, especilly small difference that we are talking about, doesn't make a difference.

I've yet to see an SSD with slower writes than even the fastest SATA hard drive, and the same goes for Reads.  Yes, in the case of SSDs, the access time makes a difference, but we are talking about next to 0 ms access times, that is a noticeable difference, but it takes that amount of difference for there to actually be a really noticeable difference.


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## n-ster (Jan 25, 2010)

Polaris573 said:


> Maybe it depends on the drive but my 7200.12 has 32 MB cache.



But the 500gb has 16mb  Yours the 1tb, which has 32mb


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## Polaris573 (Jan 25, 2010)

durp.  I need to read the whole thread title.


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## smashed_99cbr (Jan 25, 2010)

the 7200.12 is the way to go with out a doubt...

I have touched and tested more hard drives in the last 12 months then most people have seen in their life time

and the guy that said they are great in a raid 0 is right... they real really really come alive


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## JanJan (Jan 25, 2010)

wow thank you all. I actually got a deal on ebay for the Samsung F3 500gb around $60 shipped. Should i? 

I respect n-ster and I think caviar black would be really nice but the F3 and Seagate are cheaper overal so I would go with either of them. 

The F3 will be from ebay, so should i risk it or go with the Seagate from buy.com?


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