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Hewlett-Packard Co. this summer will begin outfitting its ProLiant servers with new small-form-factor hard drives developed in conjunction with Fujitsu Ltd., Hitachi Ltd. and Seagate Technology LLC.
The 2.5-inch 10,000-rpm hard drive will increase performance and server density and improve energy consumption and heat generation, according to Rich Palmer, director of product marketing for storage, networking and infrastructure for HPs ProLiant servers. For example, in the ProLiant DL360 system, which currently holds two 3.5-inch drives, HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., will be able to put four 2.5-inch drives, essentially doubling the performance, Palmer said.
The drives will also start appearing in other HP systems—such as BladeSystem servers and Integrity systems, powered by Intel Corp.s 64-bit Itanium servers—next year. In addition, they will become standard in the StorageWorks storage product line, Palmer said.
Next year, HP will introduce 15,000-rpm 2.5-inch hard drives, Palmer said.
HP this year also will increase shipments of its 3.5-inch 15,000-rpm drives. Over the course of the year, the company will phase out the 3.5-inch 10,000-rpm drives. Initially the smaller drives will be offered as an option, but in the next generation of the ProLiants offered in the first half of 2006, the 2.5-inch drives will be the default technology, officials said. Users will be able to get the 3.5-inch 15,000-rpm drives if desired.
Both the drives offer Serial Attached SCSI, of SAS, interfaces. Palmer said customers have told HP they want to make the transition to SAS and the smaller form factor at the same time.