Introduction

Solid state drives are the new cruise control for cool in the storage world. They offer blazing speed and shock resistance, but that's it! If you have any real sizeable data that you want to be easily accessible, you need mechanical storage, boys and girls and, luckily for us, the mechanical drive manufacturers haven't been sucked into all of the SSD hype.

Any hardcore user today is going to have a SSD for their operating system and other high use applications, while storing their personal data files on mechanical drives. The SSD will deliver the fast boot times and application loading times, while the mechanical drives are going to deliver inexpensive and relatively quick access to critical data. People who have big data, and want reliability and speed, have to make some tough decisions.

The Seagate Constellation ES 2TB hard drive was designed to be the best of breed mechanical drive. Seagate Constellation ES 2TB drives are enterprise grade, having a high level of reliability and low power usage. In my professional experience, I have found the phrase "enterprise grade" to mean "god tier", and enterprise grade options can cost 1000% more than desktop grade. At $269.99, the Seagate Constellation ES 2TB drives look like a real value. The real question is, how much is your data worth?