Seagate Desktop HDD ST4000DM000 Review
Manufacturer: Seagate Technology LLC
Product Name: 4TB Desktop HDD
Model Number: ST4000DM000 (OEM Kit) | STBD4000400 (Retail Kit)
UPC: 763649044896
Price As Tested: OEM: $189 (Amazon|Newegg) Retail: $199 (Amazon|Newegg)
Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Seagate.
Seagate has recently re-branded their consumer storage products, formerly named Barracuda, in time for the launch of their 15th-generation. The 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD (OEM model ST4000DM000, retail kit STBD4000400) features a SATA 6Gb/s interface with Native Command Queueing (NCQ). Eight data heads read and write to four 1GB disc platters which enable 625Gb/in2 areal density. Cached by 64MB DRAM, this 5900 RPM hard disk drive is specified to move files at 180 MB/s sustained data rate. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests performance and explores new features on the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD.
The ST4000DM000/ST3000DM003 Seagate Desktop HDD series is designed for high-capacity personal computer storage needs. Seagate has also introduced a number of refined technologies to help improve overall hard drive performance, including: dual core 40nm processor technology, DDR2 DRAM buffer, and refined caching algorithms. An efficient 2A startup current combined with improved burst rate and sustained bandwidth could give Solid State Drive (SSD) components serious competition.
Free manufacturer-supplied software tools such as Seagate SeaTools enables users to custom-define firmware parameters to enable performance features such as 'Short Stroke' and noise reduction.
Seagate Desktop HDD Features:
- High instantaneous (burst) data-transfer rates (up to 600MB per second).
- TGMR recording technology provides the drives with increased areal density.
- State-of-the-art cache and on-the-fly error-correction algorithms.
- Native Command Queueing with command ordering to increase performance in demanding applications.
- Full-track multiple-sector transfer capability without local processor intervention.
- Seagate AcuTrac servo technology delivers dependable performance, even with hard drive track widths of only 75 nanometers.
- Seagate OptiCache technology boosts overall performance by as much as 45% over the previous generation.
- Seagate SmartAlign technology provides a simple, transparent migration to Advanced Format 4K sectors
- Quiet operation.
- Compliant with RoHS requirements in China and Europe.
- SeaTools diagnostic software performs a drive self-test that eliminates unnecessary drive returns.
- Support for S.M.A.R.T. drive monitoring and reporting.
- Supports latching SATA cables and connectors.
- Worldwide Name (WWN) capability uniquely identifies the drive.
Seagate Desktop HDD Specifications:
Source: Seagate Technology LLC
Drive Testing Methodology
Comparing a Solid State Disk to a standard Hard Disk Drives is always relative; even when you're comparing the fastest rotational spindle speeds. One is going to be much faster in response time (SSD's), while the other is usually going to have higher throughput bandwidth (HDD's). Additionally, there are certain factors which can affect the results of a test which we do our best to avoid.
There are various methods of overcoming the 2.2 TB storage barrier, however this article focuses on Microsoft Windows installations. Any hard drive initialized with a MBR (master boot record) will not see more than 2.19 TB. However, if initialized using a GPD (GUID Partition Table), which is available in Windows 7, it will see more than 2.2 TB.
Solid State Drives have traveled a long winding course to finally get where they are today. Up to this point in technology, there have been several key differences separating Solid State Drives from magnetic rotational Hard Disk Drives. While the DRAM-based buffer size on desktop HDD's has now reached 64 MB and is ever-increasing, there is still a hefty delay in the initial response time. This is one key area in which flash-based Solid State Drives continually dominates because they lack moving parts to "get up to speed".
However the benefits inherent to SSD's have traditionally fallen off once the throughput begins, even though data reads or writes are executed at a high constant rate whereas the HDD tapers off in performance. This makes the average transaction speed of a SSD comparable to the data burst rate mentioned in HDD tests, albeit usually lower than the HDD's speed.
SSD Testing Disclaimer
Early on in our SSD coverage, Benchmark Reviews published an article which detailed Solid State Drive Benchmark Performance Testing. The research and discussion that went into producing that article changed the way we now test SSD products. Our previous perceptions of this technology were lost on one particular difference: the wear leveling algorithm that makes data a moving target. Without conclusive linear bandwidth testing or some other method of total-capacity testing, our previous performance results were rough estimates at best.
Our test results were obtained after each SSD had been prepared using DISKPART or Sanitary Erase tools. As a word of caution, applications such as these offer immediate but temporary restoration of original 'pristine' performance levels. In our tests, we discovered that the maximum performance results (charted) would decay as subsequent tests were performed. SSDs attached to TRIM enabled Operating Systems will benefit from continuously refreshed performance, whereas older O/S's will require a garbage collection (GC) tool to avoid 'dirty NAND' performance degradation.
It's critically important to understand that no software for the Microsoft Windows platform can accurately measure SSD performance in a comparable fashion. Synthetic benchmark tools such as ATTO Disk Benchmark and Iometer are helpful indicators, but should not be considered the ultimate determining factor. That factor should be measured in actual user experience of real-world applications. Benchmark Reviews includes both bandwidth benchmarks and application speed tests to present a conclusive measurement of product performance.
Test System
- Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 EVO (Intel P67 Sandy Bridge Platform, B3 Stepping)
- Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4 GHz Quad-Core CPU
- System Memory: 4GB Dual-Channel DDR3 1600MHz CL6-6-6-18
- SATA 6Gb/s Storage HBA: Integrated Intel P67 Controller
- AHCI mode - Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver 11.7.0.1013
- SATA 3Gb/s Storage HBA: Integrated Intel P67 Controller
- AHCI mode - Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver 11.7.0.1013
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64-Bit with Service Pack 1
Storage Hardware Tested
The following storage hardware has been used in our benchmark performance testing, and may be included in portions of this article:
Test Tools
- AS SSD Benchmark 1.6.4067.34354: Multi-purpose speed and operational performance test
- ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46: Spot-tests static file size chunks for basic I/O bandwidth
- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1a by Crystal Dew World: Sequential speed benchmark spot-tests various file size chunks
- Iometer 1.1.0 (built 08-Nov-2010) by Intel Corporation: Tests IOPS performance and I/O response time
- Futuremark PCMark Vantage: HDD Benchmark Suite tests real-world drive performance
Test Results Disclaimer
This article utilizes benchmark software tools to produce operational IOPS performance and bandwidth speed results. Each test was conducted in a specific fashion, and repeated for all products. These test results are not comparable to any other benchmark application, neither on this website or another, regardless of similar IOPS or MB/s terminology in the scores. The test results in this project are only intended to be compared to the other test results conducted in identical fashion for this article.
AS-SSD Benchmark
Alex Schepeljanski of Alex Intelligent Software develops the free AS SSD Benchmark utility for testing storage devices. The AS SSD Benchmark tests sequential read and write speeds, input/output operational performance, and response times.
AS-SSD Benchmark uses compressed data, so sequential file transfer speeds are reported lower than with other tools using uncompressed data. For this reason, we will concentrate on the operational IOPS performance in this section.
Shown below are the results for three different high-capacity Seagate disk drives. The first is our featured product, the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD ST4000DM000 (Four-Platter), which registered a 139 MB/s read speed and 135 MB/s writes at 5900 RPM. The Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 (three-platter) and Seagate Barracuda XT ST33000651AS (five-platter) each performed faster, as a direct result of their 7200 RPM platter rotations.
Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB ST4000DM000 (Four-Platter)
Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD ST3000DM001 (Three-Platter)
Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB HDD ST33000651AS (Five-Platter)
In the next section, Benchmark Reviews tests transfer rates using ATTO Disk Benchmark.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
The ATTO Disk Benchmark program is free, and offers a comprehensive set of test variables to work with. In terms of disk performance, it measures interface transfer rates at various intervals for a user-specified length and then reports read and write speeds for these spot-tests. There are some minor improvements made to the 2.46 version of the program that allow for test lengths up to 2GB, but all of our benchmarks are conducted with 256MB total length. ATTO Disk Benchmark requires that an active partition be set on the drive being tested. Please consider the results displayed by this benchmark to be basic bandwidth speed performance indicators.
Our bandwidth speed tests begin with each drive attached to the Intel P67-Express SATA 6Gb/s controller operating in AHCI mode. Using the ATTO Disk Benchmark tool, the test drive performs basic file transfers ranging from 0.5 KB to 8192 KB.
Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB ST4000DM000 (Four-Platter)
Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD ST3000DM001 (Three-Platter)
Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB HDD ST33000651AS (Five-Platter)
The 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD model provided to Benchmark Reviews for testing produced 140 MB/s maximum read/write speeds that plateau very quickly from 8-8192 KB file chunks. These results approach Seagate's performance specification of 146 MB/s this hard disk drive.
In the next section, Benchmark Reviews tests sequential performance using the CrystalDiskMark 3.0 software tool...
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Tests
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 is a file transfer and operational bandwidth benchmark tool from Crystal Dew World that offers performance transfer speed results using sequential, 512KB random, and 4KB random samples. For our test results chart below, the 4KB 32-Queue Depth read and write performance was measured using a 1000MB space. CrystalDiskMark requires that an active partition be set on the drive being tested, and all drives are formatted with NTFS on the Intel P67 chipset configured to use AHCI-mode. Benchmark Reviews uses CrystalDiskMark to illustrate operational IOPS performance with multiple threads. In addition to our other tests, this benchmark allows us to determine operational bandwidth under heavy load.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 reported sequential speeds reaching 145.7 MB/s reads and 144.0 MB/s writes on the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD, closely matching Seagate's specifications for the 5900 RPM drive. Compared to the 7200 RPM drives from the previous generation, the Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 (three-platter) and Seagate Barracuda XT ST33000651AS (five-platter) hard drives both performed slightly faster transfers.
Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB ST4000DM000 (Four-Platter)
Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD ST3000DM001 (Three-Platter)
Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB HDD ST33000651AS (Five-Platter)
In the next section, we continue our testing using Iometer to measure input/output performance...
Iometer IOPS Performance
Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. Iometer does for a computer's I/O subsystem what a dynamometer does for an engine: it measures performance under a controlled load. Iometer was originally developed by the Intel Corporation and formerly known as "Galileo". Intel has discontinued work on Iometer, and has gifted it to the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL).
Iometer is both a workload generator (that is, it performs I/O operations in order to stress the system) and a measurement tool (that is, it examines and records the performance of its I/O operations and their impact on the system). It can be configured to emulate the disk or network I/O load of any program or benchmark, or can be used to generate entirely synthetic I/O loads. It can generate and measure loads on single or multiple (networked) systems.
To measure random I/O response time as well as total I/O's per second, Iometer is set to use 4KB file size chunks over a 100% random sequential distribution at a queue depth of 32 outstanding I/O's per target. The tests are given a 50% read and 50% write distribution. While this pattern may not match traditional 'server' or 'workstation' profiles, it illustrates a single point of reference relative to our product field.
All of our tests used Iometer 1.1.0 (build 08-Nov-2010) by Intel Corporation to measure IOPS performance, using a SandForce-created QD30 configuration: 4KB 100 Random 50-50 Read and Write.icf. The chart below illustrates combined random read and write IOPS over a 120-second Iometer test phase, where highest I/O total is preferred:
In our Iometer tests, which use 32 outstanding I/O's per target and a random 50/50 read/write distribution, which is generally a heavy load for SSDs but also relevant to modern hard disk drives. From these test results, we can see that five platters outperform three in input/output operational performance. This makes logical sense, because there's less travel to fetch and ferry data. If you're using a hard drive on any high-I/O system then I strongly urge you to consider an SSD, but if raw storage capacity is important the Seagate Desktop HDD wins our favor.
In the next section we use PCMark Vantage to test real-world performance...
PCMark Vantage HDD Tests
PCMark Vantage is an objective hardware performance benchmark tool for PCs running 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7. PCMark Vantage is well suited for benchmarking any type of Microsoft Windows Vista/7 PC: from multimedia home entertainment systems and laptops, to dedicated workstations and high-end gaming rigs. Benchmark Reviews has decided to use the HDD Test Suite to demonstrate simulated real-world storage drive performance in this article.
PCMark Vantage runs eight different storage benchmarks, each with a specific purpose. Once testing is complete, results are given a PCMark score while and detailed results indicate actual transaction speeds. The 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD (ST4000DM000) produced a total PCMark Vantage (secondary) HDD Test Suite score of 4509. Specific test speeds are reported below:
Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB ST4000DM000 (Four-Platter)
The slower 5900 RPM rotational speed certainly impacts performance, placing the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD behind the faster hard drives and Seagate Momentus XT solid-state hybrid drive.
In the next section I share my conclusion and final product rating.
Desktop Storage Final Thoughts
It's still too early to tell exactly when HDDs will be replaced with SSDs, although basic wisdom indicates that both will be favored among their intended markets for a few years to come. Personally speaking, I have been a fan of SSD technology from the beginning; but even I can acquiesce to the Seagate and WD product road map for the short term future. SSDs can't possibly touch the value and capacity delivered by HDDs, and that's not something that will soon change.
There's no argument that HDDs still capture the capacity-hungry market segment; especially since SSDs cannot compete there. But the premium high-performance desktop storage enthusiast market is losing patience with Hard Disk Drive technology, and as a result those consumers are turning towards Solid State Drive technology in large numbers. This is exactly why the SATA 6Gb/s interface and 64MB cache buffer was so important to desktop storage technology, and delivered at exactly the right time. Sure, this new bump in performance will add considerable boost to the HDD market, but at the same time it's no surprise that premier names in the industry have also invested in their own SSD solutions.
Currently the Seagate SeaTools software only allows users to define a Logical Block Address (LBA) range, which can then be saved onto the drive's firmware. As of now this process requires an enthusiast to understand the total capacity of their drive in order to assign a short-stroke setting, but Seagate already has enthusiast how-to guides in the works. Taking a moment to step back and view the big picture, this could be Seagate's last stab at competing against the 10,000RPM WD VelociRaptor before launching their own SSD product line.
HDD vs Hybrid Drive vs SSD
It's been the same argument for over two years now: SSDs offer the best performance, but HDDs still offer the best capacity and price. Now that Solid State Hybrid drives are available, that argument changes. While the optimal blend of bandwidth speed, operational performance, storage capacity, and value has yet to be delivered, Seagate's Momentus XT series is an ultra-affordable start in the right direction. Admittedly, our benchmarks are a poor substitution for real-world user experience, and the Momentus-XT isn't designed to move large files at SSD speeds. Installed as a primary drive for notebook and value-conscious enthusiasts, the Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive delivers HDD storage capacity while starting Windows and opening programs like an SSD.
The last days of old technology are always better than the first days of new technology. Never has this saying been more true than with the topic of storage technology, specifically in regard to the introduction of Solid State Drive technology a few years ago. The only things standing in the way of widespread Solid State Drive (SSD) adoption are high storage capacity and affordable price of Hard Disk Drive (HDD) devices. Because NAND flash-based SSD technology costs more per gigabyte of capacity than traditional magnetic hard drives, the benefits of immediate response time, transfer speeds, and operational input/output performance often get overlooked. Like most consumer products, it wasn't a question of how much improvement was evident in the new technology, it was price. I'll discuss product costs more in just a moment, but for now consider how each new series of SSD product employs greater performance than the one before it, convincing would-be consumers into waiting for the right time to buy.
There's also a gray area surrounding SSD performance benchmarks that has me concerned. You might not know this, but SSDs can be very temperamental towards the condition of their flash NAND. My experience testing dozens of Solid State Drives is that a freshly cleaned device (using an alignment tool) will always outperform the same device once it's been formatted and used. A perfect example is Indilinx Barefoot-based SSDs, which suffers severely degraded performance when writing to 'dirty' flash NAND. The reason that all of this will matter is simple: the performance results reported to consumers in product reviews (such as this one) often report the very best performance scores, and the process used to obtain these results is not applicable to real-world usage. This is where garbage collection techniques such as TRIM become important, so that end-users will experience the same performance levels as we do in our tests.
Seagate Desktop HDD Conclusion
IMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate.
Beginning with performance, the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD (model ST4000DM000) is a high-capacity 5900 RPM hard disk drive that competes for shelf space against several other modern mechanical storage devices. While this 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD provided worthwhile transfer speeds, its slow rotational speed held it back. On the matter of spindle speeds, it seemed deliberate that this particular specification was absent from all Seagate product materials - including their product technical white papers. In any event, the large 625Gb/in2 areal density across four 1GB disc platters delivered 145 MB/s transfer speeds ideal for archive file storage. Seagate's Desktop HDD series is great for systems requiring top-end storage space, such as NAS servers or backup enclosures, while still working fast enough as the standalone drive in computer systems.
Into their 15th generation of hard disk drive products, Seagate's Desktop HDD series offers consumers a two-year limited product warranty. This is an unfortunate departure from their previously offered 5-year warranty for all Barracuda XT drives, but has been the standard since their last-generation Barracuda debut. The drive's low operating temperature and power saving rotational shut-down features may possibly make long-term warranties a moot point, but that would also be reason to stand behind the technology.
Seagate delivers industry-leading quality and construction in all of their products, and the high-capacity Seagate Desktop HDD series is their end-result after years of proven industry experience. Since spinning mechanical storage technology is so mature, especially from a company like Seagate, there are no issues with hardware compatibility or firmware functionality - UEFI-based systems can utilize all 4TB right out of the box.
Available as a bare-drive OEM kit (ST4000DM000) or retail boxed kit (STBD4000400), as of April 2013 the Seagate Desktop HDD is available online for $189 (OEM: Amazon|Newegg) or $199 (Retail: Amazon|Newegg). An excellent value for high-capacity storage, the Seagate Desktop HDD costs only 4.7 cents per gigabyte.
Based on the current condition of today's desktop storage market, it's still very much a hard drive friendly world. While SSD technology will eventually replace hard disk storage one day soon, there's no evidence as to when solid state storage can match capacity at the same price point. The 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD resists that forthcoming change, and its massive four-terabyte capacity paired to the future-proof SATA 6Gb/s interface will certainly help punctuate this. The affordable cost to capacity ratio puts the Desktop HDD series ahead of SSDs, while still offering respectable bandwidth performance speeds for modern computer systems.
Pros:
+ Very good 146 MB/s data transfer speeds
+ 3rd-generation SATA 6Gb/s compliant controller
+ Massive 4-Terabyte storage capacity across four platters
+ 64MB Cache buffer improves burst transactions
+ Low-power standby conserves energy
+ 2-Year Seagate product warranty
+ UEFI Systems can utilize all 4TB out of the box
Cons:
- 5900 RPM rotational speeds offer lower performance
- 2.1TB Barrier not removed via native hardware instruction on older O/S's
- Previous Barracuda XT series offered 5-year warranty
Ratings:
-
Performance: 8.75
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Appearance: 8.50
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Construction: 9.25
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Functionality: 9.00
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Value: 8.00
Final Score: 8.7 out of 10.
Recommended: Benchmark Reviews Seal of Approval.
COMMENT QUESTION: Does it bother you that the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD is a 5900 RPM hard drive?
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Comments
For what I want Yes, I'd have preferred 7,200. So am likely to look at other drives.
However if I was building an Online backup or Media store, then this drives might even be preferable. But 5,900 RPM typically means less heat & less power. The Perf drop is not that much, ~10%. So these would be fine as a target for backups or media (movies & music).
OR
they could also be balanced by SSD Drives. So you'd put your IO Intensive apps on the SSD & have them write their log files, diagnostic & audit output to these 4TB drives.
I hope this and the low spindle speed solves the problem with seagate drives clicking due to APM.
nice article as ever Olin Coles.
This HDD caters to the modern user. 4x 1TB platters seals the deal even more. Pair this with a 960GB Crucial M5 if you can and sleep on it.
2 year warranty is also a logical and acceptable compromise, as long as you are using this HDD for what it is supposed to be used for, non-intensive, non-exe files. The stress and speed of executing files, writing, reading becomes irrelevant.
If I have to find a negative, it would be when I install this HDD and shift my file library to it. That's probably going to take a longer time but it's a one-time thing.
Not sure where your head is at &/or who you are trying to abuse.
But I expect many are professional IT folks who read these reviews. They want more than a 2 disk home gaming system.
eg: Developers running very large virtual machines, perhaps with huge databases. Maybe emulating a an entire datacentre on a single dev workstation. Perhaps Graphic Designers who work on big animations. They use an entire SSD just to cache their active project.
These sorts of folks often have 4-8 disks in their "Home Server / Dev workstation." And rarely do they want to afford the cost of 10TB's of SSD's. Hence the need to balance &/or run NAS storage.
For them moving TB's of files is not a "one time thing"
These folks won't bother reading this review. That means I'm probably abusing you.
Over the years I've recommended the purchase of many 100's of enterprise class drives. Typically we only put them in servers. They cost more, if they aren't kept cool in an air-conditioned room can have a similar failure rate to the cheaper drives. So for developer workstations & technical home / demo systems, they get these style consumer drives.
Actually, These data centre folks, read all reviews.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Quite the opposite - it's a selling point. I have two Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 4TB and I am disappointed with how hot and noisy they run. The lower RPM Seagate looks perfect.
Speed is a non-issue when we're talking about HDD's - they are all slow, and it is a moot point whether one is "less slow" than the other. The price of 4TB is such that your typical buyers will be higher end, non-budget, users who can afford SSD's. I will not compromise by using HDD's - you get the right tools for your requirements, and for speed, one goes with SSD.
What I need in my HDD's is quiet, low power "large capacity" active storage, in a relatively compact package, to accompay my fast SSD's.
I am now putting Hitachi 7k4000's in most of my customer machines, with Constellation ES.3 or WD RE 4tb drives as an upgrade - these are for desktop machines with 4+ rotating drives and typically a 256gb SSD - which seems like a waste of money, but it appears to be the only way to get high capacity combined with reasonable access time.
Maybe the new WD SE series will be the way to go.
I am really disappointed that the 4TB Barracuda XT never seemed to appear other than in external drives destined for failure (with the access times crippled and no ventilation).