The Package

This particular Seagate 750GB Barracuda ES unit is an OEM drive. Hence, it only came in a semi-rigid plastic box to protect it against shock and electrostatic charges.

If you intend to have it delivered by mail, make sure you pack it inside a thick, padded box. The plastic box is really not tough enough to protect the drive against the rigors of mail delivery.

Of course, if you purchase the retail version of this drive, it will come in its own box, with the proper packaging to survive a mail delivery.

The Barracuda ES

The Barracuda ES is Seagate's first enterprise-grade hard drive to feature a SATA interface. Designed for use in servers and enterprise storage solutions, the Barracuda ES not only offers high performance and high capacity but also better rotational vibration tolerance for higher reliability.

There are actually two different Seagate 750GB Barracuda ES models, based on the size of the SDRAM buffer. This model comes with 16MB of SDRAM buffer while a slightly cheaper model has an 8MB SDRAM buffer.

To be sure of the exact model you have, check the top plate of the drive. It is adorned with a long label, listing its capacity, model number, serial number, firmware revision and country of manufacture (Singapore). Heck, it even has a short installation guide!

Take a look at the second line just below the serial number. That's the model number. Although the number ST3750640NS seems really long, just take a look at the last three numbers. The number 6 in the last three numbers (640) denotes a 16MB cache. If the last three number is 840, then the drive has an 8MB cache.

The label is also where you can check the capacity of the drive. Like previous Seagate hard drives, the capacity isn't printed in large letters. You need to squint at the label to be sure that it really has a capacity of 750GB. It's kinda hard to imagine 750GB of storage space inside such a small case, isn't it?

The underside is bare, except for a small PCB. We will examine the PCB and its components in the next page. The end of the hard drive sports the SATA connectors as well as the jumper block. Now, let's take an in-depth look at the drive and its various features and components.