Three 2.5" SAS Drives: Enterprise Data Giants, Compared

Features
By , published

Currently, 2.5" enterprise drives are leaving their 3.5” competitors behind. They're faster, more flexible, and now they offer comparable capacities (we're up to 1 TB now). In this piece, it's Hitachi versus Seagate battling for high-density supremacy.

Comparison Table, Test Configuration, And Transfer Diagrams

Comparison Table

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ManufacturerHitachiSeagateSeagate
FamilyUltrastar C10K600Constellation.2Savvio 10K.5
ModelHUC106060CSS600ST91000640SSST9900805SS
Form factor2.5“2.5“2.5“
Capacity600 GB1000 GB900 GB
RPM10 000 RPM7200 RPM10 000 RPM
Further capacities450, 300 GB250, 500 GB600, 450, 300 GB
Platter333
Cache64 MB64 MB64 MB
InterfaceSAS 6Gb/sSAS 6Gb/sSAS 6Gb/s
Operating temperature5-55 °C5-60 °C5-55 °C
No-load power according to spec3.1 W3.9 W4.4 W
No-load power according to test3.6 W4.3 W5.0 W
Operating shock (2 ms, Read)60 G70 G40 G
Warranty5 years5 years5 years

Test Setup

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System Hardware
HardwareDetails
CPUIntel Core i7-920 (Bloomfield) (45 nm, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB L3 Cache)
Motherboard(Socket 1366)Supermicro X8SAX, Revision: 1.1, Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R, BIOS: 1.0B
RAM3 x 1 GB DDR3-1333 Corsair CM3X1024-1333C9DHX
HDDSeagate NL35 400 GB, ST3400832NS, 7200 RPM, SATA 1.5Gb/s, 8 MB Cache
Storage ControllerHighPoint Rocket 620, Marvell 88SE9128
PSUOCZ EliteXstream 800 W, OCZ800EXS-EU
Benchmarks
Performance Measurementsh2benchw 3.13 PCMark Vantage 1.0
I/O PerformanceIOMeter 2006.07.27 Fileserver-Benchmark Webserver-Benchmark Database-Benchmark Workstation-Benchmark Streaming Reads Streaming Writes
System-Software & Drivers
Operating SystemWindows Vista Ultimate SP1

Transfer Diagrams