Conclusion
For literally fourteen generations Seagate has used a winning combination, pairing cutting edge technology with a 7200RPM spindle speed for their high end hard drives. This approach has led to countless award-winning products so changing this formula was a rather large risk on their behalf. Consumers being targeted by the HDD.15 4TB associate rotational speed with raw performance so the move to 5900RPM will likely be quite jarring for some. Thankfully, fears of less than optimal results were largely unfounded and this new drive provided some great results backstopped by stable delivery.
For the most part, the lower spindle speed is not overly indicative of the HDD.15’s actual performance. In testing the ultra dense 1TB platters, combined with the massive capacity made for a drive that behaved more like a 7200RPM model than anything in lower-tier markets.
Unfortunately, regardless of its decent showing, Seagate’s latest offering is still noticeably slower than Western Digital’s Black 4TB and its Barracuda 3TB predecessor. Great platter density and highly refined firmware can only do so much to overcome the rather slow spindle speed. When compared against 7200RPM models, the new Desktop HDD.15 4TB is not all that noteworthy and Seagate may have been a touch overly ambitious with their goals for this drive.
In order to fully understand where Seagate is coming from, one has to examine their lineup’s new sense of direction. They have obviously recognized the changing consumer drive landscape and are taking steps to adapt to it. In the modern enthusiast marketplace Solid State Drive’s are the de-facto "OS drive’ of choice and this new model is the perfect data companion. Plus, while their new flagship may be at a disadvantage right now, nothing is stopping Seagate from releasing a high performance model sometime in the future. There’s plenty of space above the 4TB’s frugal price point to ensure any additional entrants have space to breathe.
The HDD.15 4TB has been created for one purpose: to help solidify Seagate’s future in the quickly changing storage marketplace. In this, they have succeeded in creating a great secondary drive which is packed with capacity and retains its performance without costing a fortune. While we would think long and hard about using this drive as a computer system’s only long term storage device, for most other tasks it would be very high on our list.
Pros:
- 1 TB platters
- Massive capacity
- Reasonable price
- Low power consumption
- Low noise
Cons:
- 5900 RPM spindle speed
- Two year warranty
- Much more expensive than – yet not as fast – as the 3TB Barracuda
Conclusion
For literally fourteen generations Seagate has used a winning combination, pairing cutting edge technology with a 7200RPM spindle speed for their high end hard drives. This approach has led to countless award-winning products so changing this formula was a rather large risk on their behalf. Consumers being targeted by the HDD.15 4TB associate rotational speed with raw performance so the move to 5900RPM will likely be quite jarring for some. Thankfully, fears of less than optimal results were largely unfounded and this new drive provided some great results backstopped by stable delivery.
For the most part, the lower spindle speed is not overly indicative of the HDD.15’s actual performance. In testing the ultra dense 1TB platters, combined with the massive capacity made for a drive that behaved more like a 7200RPM model than anything in lower-tier markets.
Unfortunately, regardless of its decent showing, Seagate’s latest offering is still noticeably slower than Western Digital’s Black 4TB and its Barracuda 3TB predecessor. Great platter density and highly refined firmware can only do so much to overcome the rather slow spindle speed. When compared against 7200RPM models, the new Desktop HDD.15 4TB is not all that noteworthy and Seagate may have been a touch overly ambitious with their goals for this drive.
In order to fully understand where Seagate is coming from, one has to examine their lineup’s new sense of direction. They have obviously recognized the changing consumer drive landscape and are taking steps to adapt to it. In the modern enthusiast marketplace Solid State Drive’s are the de-facto "OS drive’ of choice and this new model is the perfect data companion. Plus, while their new flagship may be at a disadvantage right now, nothing is stopping Seagate from releasing a high performance model sometime in the future. There’s plenty of space above the 4TB’s frugal price point to ensure any additional entrants have space to breathe.
The HDD.15 4TB has been created for one purpose: to help solidify Seagate’s future in the quickly changing storage marketplace. In this, they have succeeded in creating a great secondary drive which is packed with capacity and retains its performance without costing a fortune. While we would think long and hard about using this drive as a computer system’s only long term storage device, for most other tasks it would be very high on our list.
Pros:
- 1 TB platters
- Massive capacity
- Reasonable price
- Low power consumption
- Low noise
Cons:
- 5900 RPM spindle speed
- Two year warranty
- Much more expensive than – yet not as fast – as the 3TB Barracuda
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