Seagate Launches Biggest Comprehensive Enterprise HDD and SSD Lineup

Constellation ES.2 3TB

Last but not least, definitely not least, is the Constellation ES.2. This drive is the only remaining drive in Seagate’s enterprise lineup that will be in the 3.5” form factor. The ES.2 will come in only one capacity, 3TB. This is because Seagate only expects the ES.2 to fill bulk data storage and RAID arrays. These drives are primarily intended as backups for the faster smaller capacity drives. Because of this, these are also the slowest drives that Seagate offers in their enterprise line-up. This results in an average read /write seek time of 8.5 and 9.5ms respectively for the ES.2 drives with sustained transfer rates of 155MB/s up from 150MB/s using SATA 6Gb. So, even though this is technically their slowest HDD they’ve still managed to make it faster. In addition to that, the drives will consume 7.4w on SAS and 7.7w on SATA in idle use. This marks a reduction of idle power from 8w on SAS. Meanwhile, these drives consume 10.43w and 10.15w in random read/write conditions which make them less attractive when trying to be constantly accessing data. This is why Seagate is pushing a tier storage system. In order to make these drives more attractive for things like RAID Seagate has added features like PowerChoice and RAID Rebuild. Powerchoice enables the selection of different drive spin up speeds in order to reduce power consumption and to control it with four different settings. RAID Rebuild is a feature that Seagate is still working on, but is stated to reduce RAID rebuild times by 80% once implemented. The only issue is that RAID controller manufacturers need to be onboard in order for RAID Rebuild to be able to function properly. Hopefully we will see a few announcements soon.

Seagate has quite a large enterprise drive offering that they are simultaneously launching. They have been putting a lot of focus on tiering their drives and showing that the storage industry is moving towards smaller (2.5”) form factors and that SSDs are finally beginning to see their places in enterprise computing. As the market grows, we can expect to see SSDs capturing 5% or more of the entire enterprise market by volume and likely much much more in revenue. It is good to see that Seagate acknowledged the fact that SSDs are an important factor in the growth of the storage industry but at the same time realizes that HDDs are not necessarily going anywhere either. The proper balance of the two will likely yield Seagate a solid business model into the future and is a recipe for success and profit growth. While it is likely that Seagate going private could have helped the company, this sort of a comprehensive enterprise offering is likely going to support the company for years to come. Well, that about wraps it up; we look forward to seeing these drives available soon and giving you guys our own test results.