In the summer of last year we finally went into the double digits in terms of storage capacity of 3.5"-hard disks. At the last moment of 2017 Seagate takes the next step, because the manufacturer sent us the first hard drive with a storage capacity of 12TB. It is certainly big, but is it also fast, this Seagate Barracuda Pro 12TB?

The Barracuda Pro-series is the most high-end series that Seagate has for desktop use. The drives in this series are available in the highest capacities - the regular Barracuda only goes up to 4 TB at the moment - and they also have a long warranty of five years.

The new 12TB-model that we take a look at today consists of eight platters of 1.5 TB each, that operate at a speed of 7200 rpm. In order to fit this many platters in a 3.5"-case, Seagate used helium to fill the drive. This means that the drive is completely airtight which makes it look more massive when compared with regular models. The used storage technology is 'just' PMR. In other words, the downsides of SMR do not apply to this drive.