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The Right Drive For The Job

Moving Into the Lite
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Whether they know it or not, all users, business and consumer alike, face challenging conditions for their storage. As data storage and accessibility continues to gain importance in all spheres, having drives able to handle performance and reliability demands becomes paramount. Nowhere is this more true than when building the foundation for cloud storage services, no matter the size.


For those wanting to meld the enterprise-class benefits discussed earlier with the lowest price-per-gigabyte advantages, look to the Seagate Constellation CS NLL series. The CS drives come in 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB models, each specifying a 180MB/s sustained data rate, 7200-RPM spindle speed, and 64MB of cache. All three variants sport a typical idle power of only 0.34W and active operating power of 7.79W. Instant Secure Erase functionality is optional across models.

For maximum capacity in the NLL category, Seagate offers its 4TB Terascale™ HDD. In reaching this mix of capacity and features, Seagate had to dial back a bit on the RPM rate, opting for 5900, which in turn caps sustained throughput at 160MB/s. But the advantage of this is that active power drops to only 6.49W, a level that Seagate says can yield 32% less power and cooling costs than competing options. As discussed above, top speed is typically not a primary concern in cloud storage applications, whereas cost-per-gigabyte and ROI become more critical. Again, Instant Secure Erase functionality is optional. Seagate touts the Terascale HDD as offering the best dollar-per-terabyte price in its enterprise portfolio.

Regardless of whether buyers opt for the Constellation CS drive, Terascale HDD, or a different vendor entirely, the need to step up from desktop-class drives for cloud applications should be clear. Don’t settle for making quick decisions based on the short spec sheets. Look further into the specifics, think about long-term drive replacement costs, workload levels, ambient operating conditions...and then pick the most sensible drives for the job.