Author: Kent Bransford, Senior Technical Editor,
Seagate Technology
As capacity demands and energy costs continue to escalate, the need for greater data center efficiency has become increasingly urgent. A recent study by research company, Robert Frances Group, found that 41 percent of IT executives surveyed at Fortune 500 companies view power and cooling as major concerns. That same study revealed that while Fortune 1000 companies averaged 138TB of storage in 2004, by 2006 that figure had mushroomed to 600TB.
Recognizing the fundamental role that hard disk drive (HDD) storage plays in shaping the data center footprint, power and cooling profiles, Seagate has specifically designed its Savvio and Cheetah enterprise-class SAS drives to deliver maximum performance while enabling systems with reduced space and energy requirements.
Not surprisingly, industry response has been overwhelmingly positive. Leading OEMs are adopting Savvio 10K RPM drives at a record rate; and the movement from 3.5-inch HDDs to 2.5-inch drives will only accelerate with the recent availability of Savvio 15K RPM disk drives to OEM customers. Developers can easily join this migration, taking advantage of Savvio 10K.2’s broader availability and channel-ready pricing to incorporate the many benefits of 2.5-inch drives in their HDD storage solutions.
Cheetah 15K RPM disk drives have consistently led the 3.5-inch HDD pack for storage performance and value, and the Cheetah 15K.5® promises to extend that lead. Cheetah 15K.5 is the fastest, highest capacity and most reliable generation ever, offering even lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than its acclaimed predecessor.
Overview: Savvio 10K.2 SAS
Key to building more flexible and competitive systems, 2.5-inch small form factor (SFF) Savvio drives are rapidly becoming the HDD of choice for major system suppliers and channel solution builders. Leading system suppliers including HP, IBM, and Sun are boosting their systems’ efficiency with storage powered by Savvio drives.
HP has standardized its server product line on 2.5-inch drives throughout much of its new ProLiant, Integrity & BladeSystem offerings, and has included SFF compatibility in its Storageworks MSA external storage as well. Similarly, IBM offers 2.5-inch storage in all of its BladeCenter® servers, and includes Savvio drives in the majority of its newest System xTM servers. In addition, Sun has adopted SFF enterprise-class drives across its entire server portfolio, from entry level to data center and blade server product lines.
Whether deployed in blade servers, compact 1U, 2U, or larger 3U or 4U servers, or storage arrays, Savvio drives are spearheading a new era of high-density enterprise storage. Simply put, Savvio SFF drives enable cooler-running systems that deliver higher performance and greater reliability than those based on conventional 3.5-inch 10K RPM enterprise drives:
Cooler-Running Enterprise Drive
- Savvio drives reduce system temperatures and power consumption while enabling more airflow to cool the systems’ processors. Seagate is leading the “Green Revolution” in the enterprise, working to deliver innovative solutions to address power and cooling challenges that data centers encounter.
Superior Performance Density
- Smaller platters ensure faster seek times, while the compact chassis enables more drives per system to maximize IOPS/U performance. Savvio drives also make room for additional memory modules and other system components to complement the latest and fastest processors available.
Unprecedented Reliability
- Savvio 10K.2 drives set a new record for the highest reliability rating ever achieved by a Seagate disk drive. In addition, the non-recoverable error rate has been improved by a factor of 10 to rigorously safeguard data. Savvio drives ensure higher uptime in the most demanding storage environments. And by bringing enterprise-class SFF SAS storage to blade servers, Seagate helps further reduce blade failures and unwanted system replacements.
Overview: Cheetah 15K.5 SAS
With a strong family history of record-breaking achievements, the new Cheetah 15K.5 HDD once again sets the pace for meeting the enterprise’s storage needs by delivering unprecedented performance coupled with the highest reliability and capacity ever offered in a Seagate 15K RPM 3.5-inch disk drive.
Available with up to 300GB capacity and providing up to 30% higher performance than previous generations, the Cheetah 15K.5 drive delivers peerless price-per-performance. Cheetah 15K.5 drives enable lower TCO for a multitude of enterprise applications; from e-mail, Internet and e-commerce to business processing and decision support.
The Cheetah 15K.5 drive leverages Seagate’s R&D leadership to create the world’s first enterprise disk drive with perpendicular recording. Perpendicular recording technology is fundamentally superior, enabling the Cheetah 15K.5 to deliver double the capacity of other 15K drives while boosting performance over its predecessors by up to 30 percent.
By enabling higher performance with fewer drives, Cheetah 15K.5 shrinks data center floor space, energy consumption and storage management costs. Furthermore, utilizing fewer drives increases overall system reliability by reducing the number of potential points of failure.
- Cheetah 15K.5 is the first drive to break the 100-Mbyte sustained transfer rate barrier, delivering up to 125 MB/sec
- Thirty percent more IOPS and more than 20 percent faster response times than 3.5-inch 10K drives
- Fastest and most reliable Cheetah 15K ever
- Reduces RAID rebuild times while minimizing reliability risks
Conclusion
Boosting storage capacity and performance while enabling systems with smaller data center footprints and lower power consumption may seem a daunting task for any HDD, but these new enterprise-class SAS drives from Seagate are up to the challenge. The new Seagate Savvio 10K.2 and Seagate Cheetah 15K.5 drives address the critical need for greater space and energy efficiency in today’s enterprise systems, while significantly expanding the storage envelope for both capacity and performance.
