Hitachi Ultrastar C10K600 (600 GB)
We're starting to see the number 18 more often in product descriptions. The Seagate Savvio 10K.5 aims to deliver 18% more performance than its predecessor. Hitachi's Ultrastar C10K600 also sets its sights on this value. However, Hitachi doesn't claim to improve on the performance of its own devices. Rather, this drive's data sheet claims 18% better performance than its competition (specifically, in terms of sequential transfer rates).
As our tests show, the Hitachi drive doesn't exactly run away from the competition, but it does rank highly in almost all of the benchmarks. With average transfer rates of 139.4 MB/s, the Hitachi Ultrastar C10K600 outperforms Seagate's drives, especially in terms of I/O performance. Moreover, the device sports impressive power consumption, returning the best value in performance per watt.
A look at the Ultrastar C10K600's specifications shows that the impressive performance is no accident. The drive spins at 10 000 RPM, has a 64 MB cache and sends data at a nominal 6 Gb/s via the SAS interface. This drive family does lag behind in terms of storage space, though. Its maximum capacity of 600 GB falls 300 GB short of what the competition offers. And it isn’t cheap either: the 600 GB HUC106060CSS600 we tested sells for around $450. Hitachi also offers the Ultrastar C10K600 in 450 and 300 GB capacities, which can be had for $350 and $270, respectively. For those concerned with security, some models of the C10K600 offer hard drive-level data encryption.
Along with the high transfer rates, the small form factor, and its lower power consumption, the Ultrastar C10K600 is also attuned to server environments by virtue of its high reliability. Even in enterprise systems, Hitachi claims a MTBF of 2 million hours for its device, putting it more or less at the same level as Seagate's Savvio 10K.5.
