Seagate Technology today officially announced the release of a 750GB desk top hard drive, the latest version of its Barracuda 3.5-in. drives. The Barracuda 7200.10 model comes in capacities ranging from 200GB to 750GB and features support for Ultra ATA/100 and SATA interfaces with either 8MB or 16MB of data cache buffer. Besides increasing the 7200.10's areal density, Seagate seems to have improved the drive's acoustics. The company claims 27dB idle and 30dB seek noise levels for the top-end 750GB 7200.10, compared to 28dB and 32dB for the 500GB 7200.9, which has the same number of platters. Noise levels for the rest of the line aren't entirely clear, though, with alternating claims of 25dB and 27dB idle noise levels for 400GB and smaller models.

Nonetheless, Seagate says the drives are "now shipping to the worldwide distribution channel," and that they all sport a five-year warranty. Two resellers are already listing 750GB 7200.10s for between $497 and $540, but other capacities don't appear to be available online just yet.

Any idea what the MTBF rating is on these things? Are they capable of 24/7 heavy load operation? I know thier nl35 line is, and that those go up to 500GB, so I assume the 7800.x'ers are not. Maybe they'll release a 750GB server class drive soon. Now that'd be nice.

Funny thing is I've been quoting file servers for my company lately, and have come across a company already using the 750GB drives and only the 7800.9s and 7800.10s from seagate are selectable for drives, no other brands. WTF are they thinking? haha, whoever buys that crap better use raid 1.