Seagate's Constellation.2, a 1TB hard disk drive for storage arrays and enterprise data centers, will be shipped in Dell systems at the end of the month.
Seagate introduced on Dec. 13 the Constellation.2, a 1TB
hard disk drive designed for enterprise server storage applications.
The 2.5-inch hard disk drives are intended for a variety
of storage environments, including direct attached storage, network attached
storage and storage area network systems, according to Seagate. With high
capacity, low power consumption and fast performance, these drives can be used
by small to midsize companies as well as large enterprise data centers that
store and host data in the cloud, the company said.
"Reaching the 1TB capacity in a small form factor gives
IT managers more options to meet capacity requirements with efficient storage
platforms," said John Rydning, research director for IDC.
Rydning predicted that capacity-optimized drives will increase by more than 50
percent from 2010 to 2014.
The 7,200-rpm drives will be available in 250GB, 500GB
and 1TB capacities, and with 6G -bps SATA or SAS interface options, said
Seagate. The smaller 2.5-inch drive is more versatile than the standard
3.5-inch drives, as it can be used in compact applications as well as the ones
that generally use the larger drives, according to the company.
Seagate is not the first hard drive vendor to bring a 1TB
internal 2.5-inch hard drive to the market. That distinction belongs to
Western
Digital's Scorpio Blue, launched last year. Nor is it the largest, with Western
Digital's 3TB, 3.5-inch
WD Caviar Green desktop hard drive on the market.
However, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue targeted desktop computers and laptops.
The Constellation.2 is designed to bear heavy data loads inside the data
center, Seagate said.
"With its class-leading reliability, record-breaking
capacity and improvements made along its entire range of features, Constellation.2
drive is a perfect solution for dense server and storage systems," said
Kennedy.
The new Constellation design provides improved data
integrity with the new T10 Protection Information standard, Seagate said. Data
reliability has also increased, with up to 1.4 million hours mean time between
failures (MTBF), according to Seagate.
"Data center managers continue to seek out more
efficient storage technologies without sacrificing performance, while still
meeting capacity growth requirements," said Rydning.
For companies concerned about soaring energy costs,
Constellation.2 drives have low power requirements, Seagate said. According to
Seagate's Inside IT Storage blog, the drive operates on less than 6.4 watts and
saves up to 72 percent over traditional 3.5-inch hard drives. The PowerChoice
power savings feature can also reduce power consumption by nearly half during
slow or idle periods, Barbara Craig, a senior product marketing manager at
Seagate, wrote for the blog.
The drive also has 128-bit to 256-bit self-encryption
technology, which protects important data from unauthorized access, Seagate said.
The drives come with a five-year warranty and an additional two years of
protection, according to Craig.
Dell will be one of the vendors shipping these Constellation.2
drives in their storage systems. The Dell PowerVault storage enclosures and
PowerEdge servers will be able to use these 2.5-inch Constellation.2 SAS
drives, such as the direct-attached, energy-efficient storage array MD1220.
With 24 Constallation.2 hard disk drives, enterprises can use the PowerVault to
gain 24TB capacity in a 2U system or up to 192TB of storage if eight units are
clustered together.
Dell will start shipping the drives in late December,
said Seagate, which declined to provide any more details about pricing or
shipping.
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