Image processing

Adobe Photoshop

ACDSee PowerPack

ACDSee provides another opportunity for the Barracuda one-point-five to strut its stuff, and this time it's much faster than the old 7200.11. However, the 1.5TB drive still can't catch Western Digital's latest.

Multitasking and office applications

Microsoft Office

Mozilla

Mozilla and Windows Media Encoder

WorldBench's office and multitasking tests don't show much preference for one drive over another.

Other applications

WinZip

Nero

WinZip and Nero are more demanding, though, and here the field really breaks open. The 7200.11 1.5TB finds itself in the middle of the pack in both tests, which makes it faster than Seagate's previous Barracuda but slower than the fastest drives on the market.