Storage firm Seagate has unveiled what it claims is the world’s fastest desktop hard disk drive.

The 3.5in 7,200rpm Barracuda XT drive boasts 2TB of storage capacity and is the first to use the Serial ATA (SATA) III interface, which supports transfer speeds of up to 6Gbit/s – double that of SATA II.

According to Seagate, the XT uses four 500GB platters, giving it an areal density of 368Gbits per square inch. It also includes a 64MB cache to help boost overall and burst performance.

"Capacity and performance remain the defining attributes of hard drives for PC gamers, digital multimedia content developers and many other customers requiring high-end systems at home and in the office," said Dave Mosley, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Seagate.

"Seagate is meeting these requirements with the first 7,200rpm desktop hard drive to combine 2TB of storage capacity with the fastest Serial ATA interface to date."

Although the drive is backwards compatible with SATA and SATA II connections, users can only exploit its enhanced storage bandwidth if they connect it to an interface that supports the new standard – such as the recently unveiled Gigabyte and Asus motherboards based on Intel's P55 chipset.

According to Asus, the company has built in an expansion bridge into its P7P55D Premium to help cope with the extra throughput, while also providing a similar expansion card for other P7P55D Series models.

The drive ships today and should sell for around $299 (£184).