Option 3: Deploy Transitional Products
There are only three companies left to compete in the 2.5” enterprise hard drive market: Hitachi, Seagate, and Toshiba. The latter finished its acquisition of Fujitsu’s storage division last year, making it the predominant player in this market segment. Our review of the Savvio 10K.4 and Toshiba’s MBF2600RC made clear that the Toshiba offering is slightly superior when it comes to performance, while Seagate makes up for this with more attractive MTBF ratings. Be that as it may, the MBF2600RC was quickly turned into a compliant 3.5” product for adoption of the latest hard drives into existing 3.5” environments.
The MBF260LRC is based on the aforementioned hard drive and is technically not different, with the exception of the surroundings on the outside. Not only does it come with a mounting frame for smooth deployment into 3.5” environment, but the product actually considers a few more details: connector position, cooling requirements (there are holes in the metal structure), and screw holes.
In the end, administrators and decision makers looking for modern SMB or entry-level enterprise storage might be interested in a transitional product like this one, as the MBF260LRC offers the latest 2.5” technology, performance, and power consumption for the 3.5” form factor, which all hard drive makers have told us is clearly on the retreat in the server mainstream.
Unfortunately, Toshiba treats the product seriously enough to forbid removing the drive from its installation frame. If you do, it voids your warranty.
