Budget data grave with high capacity, but improving read performance worthy

I put the plate in the 3 TB version as a backup drive on a Lenovo T400 with Win 7 64 bit one. Since this only has USB 2.0, I have retrofitted a AKE ExpressCard USB 3.0. At this card the board gives you over 110 MB / s write performance according to c't H2testw Version 1.4. The read performance is unfortunately only 60 MB / s. Despite the latest Renesas driver 3.0.20 and the latest Bios V. 2017. Thus, the reading performance holds at least in my system does not match the write performance with what is a pity.

The plate is also to 5h duration letter (~ 2.5 TB) outside only slightly warm and is pleasant for a quiet 7,200 / min plate. The housing is very compact for a 3.5 "HD and fanless, but quite heavy. Once the plate is logged out of the PC, it will automatically shut down. Then the tiny included AC adapter is also cold, which speaks for its excellent energy efficiency.

The access times are in accordance with HDTune Pro 5.0 with rather moderate 20ms, which is probably due to the high data density. The closer the data is packed, the longer it takes up the exact positioning on the track. A trend which has become increasingly clear in recent years. Only server boards with reduced density provide here from really good values.

I had only a little abdominal pain if my XP machine recognizes the board in full size and also can describe. But that was unfounded. The about 2,800 GB partition can be written and read without problems.

Conclusion:
Competitively priced, high-capacity data grave. Applications, where it depends on the access times, but you should not expect it possible. And a USB 3.0 port should of course be available, otherwise the filling takes about 60h. The read performance is too puny in comparison to the write performance. Perhaps it is for or a firmware update from Seagate muster. Therefore, in the current state only 4 stars.

Update as of 31.08.2012:

I have read in a few hours continuous operation times per SMART internal temperature. "Lukewarm" to the outside deceive you look quite nice, the plate quickly reaches inside the 54 ° C. Although Seagate specified as the upper limit for the operation of 60 ° C, cooler would be desirable, especially for a backup medium with increased safety requirement. A metal housing or at least one case fan was at the price probably is not in it. Through the few existing vents no good convection cooling is achieved in any case. Perhaps the upright formation would bring an improvement, but this is not supported.

Also interesting: Seagate presents three rather interesting free software tools available for all owners.

- SeaTools

Diagnostic software for DOS and Windows for testing all Seagate PATA, SATA, USB, FW, SCSI and eSATA drives. From SMART-short test to complete surface test with repair bad sectors (the latter for a backup is recommended).

- Disk Wizard

A slightly modified (also German) Windows version of the popular Acronis True Image. Who has the desktop expansion at home, can thus secure PCs with foreign plates and restore. These need not be of Seagate, an externally connected Seagate enough already. This version is fully compatible with Win 7 32 / 64bit and Win older versions. Very convenient. Unfortunately, there are some significant limitations:. Incremental od differential backups are not possible, only full backups. A mount of the existing security for searching a single file leads to reproducible crash.

- "Settings Seagate hard drives" also known as Seagate Drive Settings

Runs on Windows. Settings at the top of the LED, Power Management, SMART Short diagnosis, check for newer firmware