Seagate ST3000DM001 3TB HDD Review – Large Capacity At A Low Price!

PCMARK VANTAGE X64 HDD SUITE

The SSD Review uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data movement in MB/s to which they are then given a numerical score after all of the tests are complete. The simulations are as follows:

  • Windows Defender In Use
  • Streaming Data from storage in games such as Alan Wake which allows for massive worlds and riveting non-stop action
  • Importing digital photos into Windows Photo Gallery
  • Starting the Vista Operating System
  • Home Video editing with Movie Maker which can be very time consuming
  • Media Center which can handle video recording, time shifting and streaming from Windows media center to an extender such as Xbox
  • Cataloging a music library
  • Starting applications

PCMARK VANTAGE RESULTS

ST3000DM001 PCMark VantageOf the eight testing scenarios, the ST3000DM001 achieved its fastest transfer speeds for the Windows Media Center suite at 99.28MB/s, and was slowest in loading applications at 5.76MB/s. The total score of 5212 is about typical for a large capacity HDD.

PCMARK 8 EXTENDED STORAGE

PCMark 8 allows us to do some extended storage testing with this drive. There are a total of ten testing scenarios that involve gaming applications, Adobe software including Photoshop and Illustrator, and Microsoft Office functions. The total test run takes over three hours to complete.

ST3000DM001 PCMark 8In our PCMark 8 extended storage testing, the ST3000DM001 was fastest in the Microsoft PowerPoint section, with an elapsed time of 20.9 seconds, and was slowest in the Adobe Photoshop (heavy) at 438.8 seconds. Once again, the total score of 2640, and storage bandwidth of 11.25MB/s are about typical for this type of drive.

REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

Seagate’s ST3000DM001 3TB HDD is a solid-performing large-capacity storage product. It has not been long ago at all that 7200rpm HDDs could barely attain 100MB/s sequential reads/writes. Today we are seeing nearly double that, as the ST3000DM001 has demonstrated for this report. We saw sustained sequential reads and writes of up to 196-197MB/s. We saw random read/write speeds of up to 191-196MB/s. This is remarkably consistent performance for a large-capacity storage drive. It took our very last testing with HD Tune to bump up against 210MB/s, which was what Seagate was claiming as this drive’s maximum sustained read/write speeds in the specifications section of the ST3000DM001’s product page. Our testing shows that Seagate’s published performance specifications for the ST3000DM001 are credible.

ST3000DM001 package 5x3

If you are looking for a large-capacity HDD, the Seagate ST3000DM001 is an excellent choice. At a price of $89.30 (at time of publication), or $0.0297/GB, this drive represents a good value for a premium large-capacity storage device. Seagate’s ST3000DM001 has earned our Silver Award.

Tech X Silver Seal Opt

 Check Out Seagate ST3000DM001 HDD Pricing On Amazon!

Seagate is one of the oldest producers of HDD storage solutions in the industry, having started out in 1978 before becoming publicly traded in 1981. Seagate has certainly made its contributions to the consolidations taking place in the storage industry in the last few years, acquiring the likes of Maxtor (2005), LaCie (08/2012), LSI from Avago (05/2014), and backup and recovery provider Evault (07/2014). It was not too many years ago that the idea of a 1TB drive was almost mind-boggling. However, with the continued explosion of digital data, including large-file-size games that support hi-resolution and/or 3D graphics, HD movies, HD…

Review Overview

Build Quality
Performance
Availability
Warranty

Excellent value for a premium HDD

An excellent choice for fast, large capacity storage! $0.34/GB for 3TB of premium HDD storage!

User Rating: 2.33 ( 8 votes)

6 comments

  1. Don’t you mean $0.034c/GB??????
    The 2TB version is actually faster……………..

  2. This disk has massive reliability issues and should be avoided like the plague. Google it.

    • So stick with WD Green or Toshiba 3TB?

      • I don’t consider myself qualified to recommend a HDD. Just about qualified enough to warn you about the ST3000DM001, because I have experience with a two digit number of them. They are, to put it bluntly, garbage. In fact, most of the ST30000DM001s I have had the displeasure of handling are garbage in the most literal sense at this point, because they have failed. The first few disks that failed managed to take data with them. I quickly learned not to trust this model.

        • Voted up because I have two failed (40Gb and 250Gb) Seagate HDDs in my home being used as door stoppers. I had thought Seagate might’ve imporved their products :/

          • I must admit I have had some decent Seagate drives over the years, but the ST3000DM001 model has single-handedly convinced me to avoid Seagate from now on. The mess and anguish this model has caused is too serious to forgive.

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