Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB review

Buying older SATA2 disks can be a cost-effective way of kitting out a system. However, age doesn’t always equate to an ultra-low price, particularly when dealing with disks such as the enterprise-grade Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB, which is designed to stand up to years of constant access and has a five-year warranty to back up its claimed reliability.

Its performance in our tests was better than that of most SATA2 disks. Its small file write speed was a strong 49.7MB/s, while its read speed was a bit slower relative to other disks at 49.6MB/s. However, it did badly in our large file transfer tests, averaging just 95.1MB/s, with a write speed of 88.2MB/s and a read speed of 101.9MB/s.

It’s quick for small files, but slow at transferring large files

With one of the lowest quoted seek times we’ve seen lately – 9.5ms compared to a more typical 8.5ms from most other disks – these slow speeds shouldn’t come as a surprise. The disk also has four platters, which can also lead to slower access speeds compared to the two or even single platter 1TB disks that are now more common.

We like the security of a five year warranty but the ES.2’s price, produces a wince-inducing price of 10p per Gigabyte, which is painfully expensive by any standard. Between this and its slow performance in our tests, the disk is impossible to recommend, no matter how reliable it’s designed to be. If you’re after a cheap 1TB disk and don’t mind a short warranty, then the Samsung SpinPoint F3 is a much better deal.