Seagate's new Barracuda 7200.9 family of Serial ATA hard drives packs storage capacity on both fronts, with one model weighing in at a hefty half-terabyte and another packing a single 160GB platter whose areal density is 25% higher than its closest competitor. We've rounded up both models and run them through a brutal gauntlet of storage tests against earlier Barracudas and drives from Hitachi, Maxtor, and Western Digital. Read on to see how the 7200.9s compare.