Seagate Barracuda LP Hard Drives Offer Capacity, Lower Power Consumption

Seagate's new Barracuda LP 3.5-inch desktop hard drives offer capacities up to 2 TB and claim to consume as little has half the power of typical desktop hard drives.

Storage maker Seagate is looking to win over the hearts (and wallets) of eco-concious desktop computer users with its new Barracuda LP line of 3.5-inch desktop hard drives. Available in 1, 1.5, and 2 TB capacities, the drives spin at 5,900 rpm and the company claims they can consume as little as half the electricity of a typical desktop hard drive—although, over the entire life of the drive, Seagate is only claiming up to a 44 percent reduction in energy consumption. What’s more, up to 70 percent of the materials used in the drive can be recycled.

“Growing demand for power-efficient computing systems is not just a data center phenomenon as more builders of external storage devices, desktop PCs, and home networking systems work to provide customers with products that combine power-efficiency with rock-solid performance,” said Seagate’s VP pf personal systems marketing and strategy Joan Motsinger, in a statement. “Seagate is pleased to deliver a new low-power product line in our Barracuda family that enables system builders and end users alike to attain a higher level of environmental friendliness while cutting costs.”

The drives sport an SATA interface, 32 MB of on-board cache, and an average latency of 5.5ms. The drives can peak at transfer rates of 300 MB/s, although sustained transfers will be about 95 MB/s; the 1.5 and 2 TB units consume an average of 5. Watts at idle, while the 1 TB version consumes just 3 Watts.

Seagate hasn’t announced shipping dates for the Barracuda LP series, but pricing should start at $118 for the 1TB version, moving up to $156 and $358 for the 1.5 and 2 TB versions.