welcome to ocean gate

Buying a little bit of extra storage is going to get tougher, soon. With drives like the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB selling for only $180 on the street—and that includes a 5-year warranty—you may have to settle for a lot of storage. As you'd expect, at that price you'll have to accept some compromises. My applications-based testing using PCMark Vantage showed a small performance deficit compared with the numbers I got from high-end drives. But the Barracuda's transfer speed is fast, and the drive held its own on Media center, Vista startup, and application-loading tests. It'll also save you a bundle. For example, the Western Digital RE3 drive (WD1002FBYS) we tested against holds just 1TB, yet costs about $200. If you're looking to extend your hard drive capacity, this is a seriously cost-effective choice.