Three 2.5" SAS Drives: Enterprise Data Giants, Compared

Features
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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

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2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • compton
    Toms with some more review niceness. Thanks for another interesting article. I don't think mechanical storage is going anywhere soon. For better and worse we'll still have it around for a long, long time to come. Even when SSDs hit that magical speed/capacity/cost point to be ubiquitous for mainstream consumers, enterprises will still need HDDs as part of their storage needs. HDDs are at least a known quantity that are still getting better.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    3rd paragraph: "have to be taken into considered". You also didn't mention capacity and cost/GB, where mechanical disks still reign supreme.

    Also, why not benchmark a 3.5" disk, but only use the outer portion. If both that and a 2.5" have the same density and rotational velocity, then the 3.5" should win due to higher I/O speeds resulting from higher linear velocity.
    Reply