Seagate Launches 3 TB Barracuda XT Hard Drive

Seagate has launched its 3 terabyte (TB) Barracuda XT hard drive that helps the older operating systems such as Windows XP to overcome the existing 2 TB capacity barrier without requiring any extra hardware or software.

Legacy PC basic input/output system (PC BIOS) designs and device drivers and older operating systems such as Windows XP are incapable of using hard drive capacities beyond 2.1 TB and require additional software or hardware or extra device drivers to overcome this limitation.

Seagate said its Barracuda XT comes with a DiscWizard software to allow easy configuration of the operating system and device drivers to access the full 3 TB of capacity on systems using Windows XP and PC BIOS. The software also functions on PCs equipped with newer versions of Windows or the new unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI BIOS).

The Barracuda XT hard drive delivers the highest available capacity for home servers and workstations, high-definition video editing and production systems, high-performance PC gaming systems and desktop PCs, Seagate said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Barracuda XT hard drive combines a 64 megabyte (MB) cache that optimizes burst performance in cache-intensive applications such as PC gaming and nonlinear video editing with Serial ATA 6Gb/s - an interface that delivers the highest system throughput.

The 3.5-inch, 7200 revolutions per minute (RPM) hard drive's 3TB of storage capacity gives desktop PC users the most space ever available for videos, games, photos and files, said Seagate, which has begun shipping the product.