Everyone knows that SSDs cannot offer the capacity of a hard drive, and HDDs will never deliver solid state response time. Somewhere between the speed of Solid State Drive technology and the reliability of value-priced Hard Disk storage is the Seagate Barracuda XT. The Seagate Barracuda XT series is designed for performance computer enthusiasts, as well as large-capacity storage systems. Enthusiast tools such as the free Seagate SeaTools software allow users to custom-define firmware parameters to enable performance features such as 'Short Stroke' and noise reduction. Featuring the industry's largest 3TB capacity and third-generation SATA 6Gb/s controller interface, the Seagate Barracuda XT is also the first product to create a Windows XP-safe software solution for overcoming the 2TB barrier. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT hard drive, model ST33000651AS, against a cross-section of competing storage products using the native SATA-III controller present on the Intel P67 platform.