Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 vs Western Digital Caviar Blue Spec Compare

With SSD prices crashing, traditional spindle-based Hard Drives are gradually being replaced with solid-state NVMe drives these days. However, dominant players like Seagate and Western Digital do understand the importance of these HDDs and have been coming up with a few good products to meet the market that still looks for quality higher capacity hard drives. From that perspective, here is a comparison and a concise review of two products from Seagate and Western Digital. Let us check out Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 vs Western Digital Caviar Blue HDDs in today’s post.

Related: WD Red vs WD Gold vs WD SE Enterprise NAS Storage

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 – A Review

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Seagate has been using a new technology of using two disks in the construction of its Barracuda range of hard drives. The 1 TB drives offered by Seagate under the Barracuda 7200.12 range has a two-platter of 500 GB disks making up one 1 TB logical drive. This ensures that you have access to a lowered storage costs and enhanced performance.

The hard drive is available in capacities ranging across 250 Gb, 500 GB, 750 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB. With a failure rate of just around 0.34 percent, it should be one of the leading performers when it comes to reliability.

Also Read: Seagate Barracuda vs Barracuda Pro vs WD Black

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 is the 12^th generation of hard drives marketed by Seagate for the desktop computers. It makes use of a 500 GB platter density. The Adaptive Fly Height technology will ensure that you have access to a consistent read and write performance. It also comes with the proprietary Seagate SoftSonic motor for enabling the ultra quiet operations for enhanced performance.

The hard drive comes with the enhanced G-Force functionality for enhanced protection against physical damages. One of the prominent options we found interesting enough is the Clean Sweep feature that can automatically calibrate the drive.

And there is a thoughtful consideration for the environment as well. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 is made of recycled material – in fact, 70 percent of hard drive uses recycled material. RoHS compliance is one of the features that should ideally make it one of the excellent option for power consumption. The fact that it uses only two platters in place of the three customarily used keeps the weight low to a considerable extent.

The application areas that the drive would be an excellent option can be summarised as a workstation, desktop RAID, Gaming PCs, High-end PCs, mainstream PCs, and external NAS. It excels with its performance when it comes to RAID and multitasking environments.

Test results have indicated that it works quite well and in an excellent manner for multiple reads and write (sequentially) performances of numerous files. However, some tests showed that it falters a little when it comes to a few single larger data structures. With a wide range of storage capacities, it should efficiently meet all your needs.

The Pros

• The drive provides you access to the faster read and writes speeds.
• An excellent cost per gigabyte
• An attractive option for basic games and media consumption devices

The Cons

• It cannot be used with laptops and gaming consoles

WD Digital Caviar Blue – An Introduction

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The WD Blue is an option that lies between the WD Black and WD Green. In fact, the Blue Drives from Western Digital come with the same functionalities and features as on a WD Black drive with a few minor differences.

The drive comes with an excellent blue look making it an attractive option. The rear side of the disc has SATA interface and Power connectivity options along with four jumper pins. The drive makes use of Marvell 88i9045-TFJ2 controller. Just like Seagate Barracuda 7200.12, even the WD hard drives come with relatively lower power consumption.

The hard drive is designed to provide you access to the ultra-cool and quiet operation functionality. The 90.5MB/sec read speeds and 79.1MB/sec in the write speeds are impressive and exciting in its class, but you will find it a little disappointing when compared to the rival hard drives.

A drive is an excellent option if you are looking to strike a better balance between price, capacity, and performance. If you already have a faster SSD on your device and looking for a speedier HDD as a better companion, the WD Caviar Blue should be one of the prime choices. The two-year warranty that the drive comes with should be an added advantage.

The Pros

• An excellent and respectable performance
• Lower levels of power consumption
• A faster 7200 rpm spindle speed performance

The Cons

• May not be the right competition for the newer HDD options.

The Comparison Chart: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 vs Western Digital Caviar Blue

If you want to understand the features and functionalities of the two competing hard drives, a side by side comparison would be an excellent option. The head to head comparison will be an attractive option for making the right kind of purchasing decision.

The Concluding Thoughts

That was a quick comparison between the two most capable hard drives from Seagate and Western Digital. As we can see from the comparison chart and the concise reviews of the two hard drives here, they share a host of features and functionalities between them. However, if you are looking a faster performer among them, our preference would go to the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12. In any case, both of the hard drive options come from the reliable brands and perhaps should meet the requirements you may have concerning the hard drives and their functionality.

Have you used any of the options featured in this comparison? If you have, we will welcome you to share your thoughts, experiences, and opinions with either of the choices we have outlined here.