What’s On the Platter? The 7200.8 series was where Seagate introduced the highest density platters at 133GB/side. Some of the drives in the 7200.9 series can lay claims to having beaten that record. The 80GB hard disk, using a single platter and a single head, implies that the platter is capable of delivering 160GB (using both sides). This has been implemented in the 160GB drive that uses both sides and two heads on the platter to further increase the onboard capacity.

Assuming Seagate can put in four platters in a drive (and we don’t see why they can’t), we are looking at a capacity of roughly 640GB. Of course, the 500GB drive doesn’t use either of the above platters, but it features a 125GB specification for accurate data capacity.

Cache Rich: The cache function on a drive can affect the overall performance immensely, and since these drives are being aimed at high-end gaming machines (probably even media center PCs and low-end servers), cache is something Seagate hasn’t pinched on. The 7200.9 series of drives feature anywhere between 2MB and 16MB (for 300-500GB drives) of onboard cache.

A smart move by Seagate has been that there are multiple drives of the same capacity. These drives and specified sizes are differentiated with features and specifications. For instance, there are two 80GB 7200.9 drives: ST3802110A and ST3808110AS. The former comes with 2MB of cache while the latter has 8MB of cache as well as NCQ support. The support for NCQ defines the performance status of the drive and also hints on the higher price tag.

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