Power consumption and heat production are one of the most important aspects of desktop and mobile computing. All hard drive manufacturers are sensitive to this, and Seagate is no exception. With this in mind the company has prepared a set of drives that offer both massive storage and a low power profile. The new Barracuda LP uses supposedly 50% less electricity to operate than a "standard" desktop hard drive, managing to achieve that figure through a variety of ways.
Coming in 1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB versions, Seagate improved the performance of these drives compared to some other low-power models by giving them a slight boost in rotational speeds; 5900RPM instead of 5400RPM. While significantly slower than the 7200RPM most mid-range desktop hard drives offer, when power consumption is key and performance can't be ignored, 5900RPM seems like a nice in-between.
According to the spec sheet, Seagate's new drives offer a sustained data rate of 95MB/s and average latency of 5.5ms. That comes with a power profile of merely 6.8W when in use for the 2TB model and 5.5W when idle - dropping down to 5.7W and 3W on the smaller 1TB unit. Aside from the odd spindle speed and reduced power profile, there's not much different from these drives compared to any other 3.5-inch desktop drive. You can read more about Seagate's low-power drives at the company's website.