Seagate Technology Ltd. has brought its desktop Barracuda drives into the ninth generation, adding a half-terabyte model and 3-Gbit SATA technology to its lineup.
The Barracuda 7200.9 drives, as theyre known, have begun shipping in 40GB to 500GB capacities, with cache sizes ranging from 2MB to 16MB.
Manufacturer suggested pricing will be $61 for a 40GB parallel drive, $75 for an 80GB SATA drive, and $429 for the high-end 500GB SATA drive, said Michael Hall, a Seagate spokesman.
The drive is based on an entirely new platform, according to James Knight, Seagates product marketing manager, in an interview. “You can address all your computing needs with this one family,” he said.
Parallel and Serial ATA versions are both available, although the parallel technology is restricted to 160GB and smaller.
Specifically, 40GB to 160GB drives will contain a 2MB cache; 120GB to 250GB drives will include an 8MB cache, and drives with capacities higher than 300GB will include the full 16MB of cache.
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