Hardware Secrets brought twelve one-terabyte disk drives into the lab for a head-to-head competition.  At the end of their series of benchmark matchups, HS declared Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.12 the hands-down winner.  Excerpts from the conclusions:

“The big winner from our 1 TB hard disk drive round-up was clearly Seagate Barracuda 7200.12, which achieved an average transfer rate higher than all other hard disk drives we tested in all three programs we used.”

“…for the average user it doesn’t make any sense buying any other 1 TB hard disk drive.”

That “average user” part is important. These results are all about desktop PCs. The tests included low-power, slower spinning versions of these drives, including Seagate’s Barracuda LP and Pipeline HD models.  Hardware Secrets pointed out that low power isn’t always as big a deal for desktop PCs, because the 5 Watts or so saved pales in comparison to the system’s total power consumption. 

Think of it this way: one would need to use slower, low power desktop drives in 20 PCs to match the power saved by turning off one 100 Watt light bulb. 

This logic does not apply to laptop, server, or DVR drives.  But for desktops, a 1 terabyte Barracuda 7200.12 is a true winner.