New Seagate NAS Storage Solution Delivers Industry’s Highest Capacity and Best Performance

Subject: Storage | June 11, 2013 - 08:08 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Seagate, NAS

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) today took the wraps off its new Seagate® NAS HDD—a cutting-edge drive custom-built for always-on, one- to five-bay network attached storage (NAS) systems. Engineered with performance and reliability in mind, the new drives are available in multiple capacity points including a 4TB option—the industry’s highest capacity NAS hard disk drive (HDD) solution available—and strong industry support from nine NAS system partners.

“Today about 50 percent of NAS arrays are sold diskless meaning that customers are challenged with identifying and installing the right storage for their system. By developing a drive like NAS HDD, we’ve taken the guesswork out of it and made it easy for customers to identify the right drive for their system,” said Scott Horn, Seagate vice president of marketing. “By collaborating closely with a variety of partners who specialize in NAS systems, we’re making what was a confusing effort into a plug-and-play one.”

Featuring up to 4TB of storage the drive now enables NAS systems, such as those utilized in homes and small to midsize businesses (SMB), to provide up to 20TB of data in a five-bay NAS array. And with over 30 percent capacity improvement over competitive offerings, the NAS HDD 4TB drive delivers the highest capacity available on the market.

Cost effective drives built specifically for NAS solutions, the 4TB option has the capacity to store over 819,000 photos, 1 million songs or nearly 500 hours of high-definition (HD) video content—more than enough space for the average household. It is also ideal for small businesses with large enough capacities to support CAD files, medical images and databases.

“QNAP is thrilled to be teaming up with Seagate to offer our customers a high-performance storage solution optimized for NAS systems,” said Meiji Chang, general manager of QNAP. “The Seagate NAS HDD allows us to deliver the highest capacity storage offering on the market while providing our customers with a huge boost in performance and a reliable business level NAS solution for 24x7 operations.”

“Households and SMBs continue to generate a significant amount of data, and need fast and reliable storage solutions,” said John Rydning, IDC's research vice president for hard disk drives. “Rather than taking hours or days to transfer a large amount of digital content over the internet to a cloud storage service provider, Seagate’s new NAS HDD provides a high-capacity solution for fast data transfers and backups on-premise over local networks.”

Built to provide up to 10 percent performance advantage over the competition for 24x7 NAS applications, the NAS HDD is engineered for performance in always on applications and can support multiple HD video streams and user profiles. The drive boasts near silent acoustics operating below the range of audible sound for the human ear with as low as 1.9 bels, providing optimized acoustics for the home or SMB environment. It also features Seagate’s own NASWorks™ technology which improves drive reliability by supporting features that limit drive vibrations and support extended error recovery controls for better data integrity.

Seagate NAS HDDs are built and tested to provide industry-leading performance for small NAS systems. Key features of the NAS HDD include:

• Industry’s Highest Capacity NAS Drive—up to 4TB available, the NAS HDD offers a 30 percent capacity advantage over the competition.
• Best Performance for 1- to -5-bay NAS Systems—built and tested to provide industry-leading performance, NAS HDDs offer the industry’s highest throughput to deliver the performance demanded by NAS solutions.
• NASWorks—supports error correction via customized error recovery controls, power management and vibration tolerance for optimal performance and reliability in a 1- to 5-bay solution.
• Improved Vibration Tolerance—dual-plane balance supports the unique weighted motor design minimizing vibration that can be amplified in multi-drive systems improving the drive’s performance and system reliability.
• Advanced Power Management—supports multiple user-selectable power profiles that can optimize power usage for different workloads to minimize power consumption while maintaining high-availability performance.
• Quiet Drive Operation—enhances the end customer experience with near-silent acoustics for low-noise environments like living rooms or office spaces.

Designed with compatibility in mind, Seagate NAS hard disk drives have been rigorously tested by some of today’s top NAS providers and flawlessly integrated into their NAS solutions. For more information on the Seagate NAS HDD and qualified OEM partners please visit www.seagate.com/www/nashdd.

SanDisk pairs Marvell and MLC in their new Extreme II series

Subject: Storage | June 7, 2013 - 06:38 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: sandisk, Extreme II series, marvell 9187, 19nm, mlc

SanDisk claims their Extreme II can run at 550/510 MB/s sequential read/write, and 95,000/78,000 for random read/write IOPS, a claim which [H]ard|OCP just put to the test.  The two major changes to this drive that will contribute to the difference in speed are the switch from a Sandforce controller to the Marvell 9187 controller and the MLC flash which is 19nm in this drive.  Testing shows that the drive does live up to expectations though they did point out the lack of encryption as a weakness.  Prices for the drives are around the magic $1/GB mark, making this drive a solid contender in a very populous market.

"SanDisk releases its Extreme II series SSD, which features the Marvell 9187 controller in concert with 19nm eX2 ABL MLC NAND. The competition is heating up as another manufacturer with massive foundry capabilities releases a new SSD. Will the Extreme II "blaze through your day" and "keep you ahead of deadlines?"

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

• SanDisk Extreme II Series 120GB, 240GB and 480GB SSD Review @ Legit Reviews
• Seagate 600 240GB SATA III 6Gbps SSD Review @ Legit Reviews
• OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB SSD Review @ HiTech Legion
• Crucial M500 480GB SSD Review @ Hardware Canucks
• LSI SandForce Next Gen SSD Controller With 1800MB/s Speeds Discovered at Computex @ SSD Review
• Seagate's 600 SSD solid-state drive @ The Tech Report
• KingFast E-Drive KF2510SCF 120GB 2.5" SATA 3 SLC SSD Review @ ModSynergy
• KingFast E-Drive 2.5'' SATAIII SLC 120GB SSD Review @ Madshrimps
• OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB SSD review: Vertex 3 with 20nm flash @ Hardware.info
• ADATA DashDrive Elite UE700 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive @ eTeknix
• Zalman U3M32 32GB SLC USB 3.0 Flash Drive @ Funkykit
• Seagate's Desktop HDD.15 4TB hard drive @ The Tech Report
• Seagate Constellation ES 1TB Hard Drive Review @ PCSTATS
• Adaptec (by PMC) ASR-72405 RAID Controller (X2) Review - 1M IOPS & 12GB/s Thru 24 SMART Optimus SSDs @ SSD Review
• Vantec NexStar WiFi Hard Drive Dock Review @ Legit Reviews
• ioSafe N2 NAS / RAID Storage Solution Review @ OCIA
• Synology DS713+ NAS @ TechwareLabs
• QNAP TurboNAS TS-221 NAS Server @ NikKTech
• Infortrend EonNAS Pro 510 Review @ TechwareLabs

Super Talent Launches UltraDrive MX3 SSD In Both MLC and SLC Flavors

Subject: Storage | June 3, 2013 - 09:59 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: super talent, ssd, mx3, computex 2013, computex

San Jose-based storage manufacturer Super Talent has announced its new UltraDrive MX3 SSD. This new drive is the successor to the existing UltraDrive MX2, and is allegedly twice as fast. In an interesting twist, Super Talent is releasing the MX3 in both MLC and SLC flavors, to serve the consumer and enterprise markets simultaneously with the same branded drive and controller.

The MX3 is a SATA 3 6Gbps drive that is rated at 500MB/s reads and 400MB/s writes. The MLC version will come in capacities ranging from 64GB to 512GB while the SLC flash SKUs top out at 256GB. The chart below details the model numbers at each capacity point for both the MLC and SLC SKUs, depending on what you need.

In the press release, Super Talent CEO Abraham Ma stated the following:

“We are excited to introduce the MX3.  Not only does it offer a considerable upgrade in speed from its predecessor, the MX2, it is also an extremely reliable device that we believe fits the needs of our OEM and consumer customers.”

Pricing and availability have not been announced, however.

Stay tuned to PC Perspective throughout the week for more Computex 2013 news.

Western Digital shrinks 1TB 2.5" WD Blue HDD down to 7mm

Subject: Storage | June 3, 2013 - 08:15 AM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: western digital, wdc, Blue, 7mm, 1TB

Today Western Digital continues their push for smaller and thinner mobile hard drives by releasing a 1TB revision to their 7mm Blue series of mobile devices:

Looking at the new spec sheet, the new 1TB Blue carries increased cache (16MB) and reduced Drive Ready time (2.8 sec) as compared to their previous 9.5mm 1TB models.

Press blast after the break.

Crucial's inexpensive M500 makes MLC NAND affordable

Subject: Storage | May 28, 2013 - 01:47 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ssd, crucial m500, mlc, marvell 9187, RAIN

Before discussing the impressive price point of Crucial's M500 drive their are two features worth mentioning about this drive, RAIN and the Marvell 9187 controller.  RAIN is Redundant Array of Independent NAND which offers data parity which will allow you to successfully recreate data after an uncorrectable error, something which might put the minds of those still leery of SSDs to rest.  The new Marvell controller is the secret to the pricing of this drive, it allows the usage of 128Gbit (16GB) NAND dies as opposed to the more common 64GBit dies and is produced at a lower cost than other controllers.  [H]ard|OCP tested the 512GB drive and does warn that the specifications of the two smaller capacity drives are different enough to require individual testing.  However as you can pick up the 512GB drive for $400 you might simply opt for the largest drive which offers competitive performance at an amazing $0.78/GB.

"Crucial's M500 offers the lowest price per gigabyte for an MLC SSD with enterprise-class features not seen on typical consumer SSD data drives. With new 128Gbit MLC NAND paired with the Marvell 9187 controller the M500 should deliver great performance at a historically low price point. Is the Crucial M500's performance up to par?"

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

• 240GB OCZ Vertex 3.20 Solid State Drive @ Benchmark Reviews
• OCZ Vertex 3.20 120GB SSD Review @ Techgage
• Solidata K8 1920E SSD Review - SandForce Driven and an Amazing 2TB Capacity @ SSD Review
• OCZ Vertex 3.20 Solid State Drive @ X-bit Labs
• OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB SATA III 2.5'' SSD Review @ Madshrimps
• OCZ Vertex 450 256GB SSD Review @ Legit Reviews
• OCZ Vertex 450 SSD @ Techspot
• OCZ Vertex 450 @ Hardware.info
• OCZ Vertex 450 SSD @ SSD Review
• OCZ Vertex 450 256GB @ Tweaktown
• SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD @ eTekinx
• Samsung SSD 840 comparison @ Hardwareoverclock
• Seagate 600 Pro SSD @ SSD Review
• Crucial M500 480GB SSD @ eTeknix
• Bang for Your Buck: Best 256GB Class SSD's under $200 @ Tweaktown
• OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB Solid State Drive Review @ OCIA.net
• Kingston SSDNow E100 Enterprise SSD @ Tweaktown
• Mushkin Chronos GO Deluxe 1.8″ SATA 3 SSD Review ? Lightning Speeds Ultrathin Design @ SSD Review
• HGST Travelstar 7K1000 1TB 2.5" Hard Drive @ Tweaktown
• 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD ST4000DM000 @ Benchmark Reviews
• WD Se 4TB Enterprise Hard Drive Review @ Techgage
• Western Digital Scorpio Blue (WD5000LPVT) 500GB HDD @ Tweaktown
• Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD 500GB review: 2.5-inch hard disk with SSD cache @ Hardware.info
• Seagate Desktop HDD.15 4TB Hard Drive Review @ Hardware Canucks
• ADATA DashDrive Elite UE700 USB 3.0 Flash Drive @ Tweaktown
• Kingston DT Workspace 64GB 'Windows To Go' USB 3.0 Flash Drive @ Tweaktown
• Adata DashDrive Elite UE700 32GB Flash Drive Review @ Ninjalane
• Kingston HyperX Predator 512GB @ Hardware.info
• 32 32/64GB USB 3.0 memory stick test: lots of differences @ Hardware.info
• Patriot Supersonic Magnum Flash Drive @ Benchmark Reviews
• Lexar Professional 128GB Compact Flash Memory Card @ Tweaktown
• Transcend 32GB Wi-Fi SDHC @ Tweaktown
• Kingston 64GB microSDXC SDCX10/64GB @ Bjorn3D
• WD My Passport Ultra 1TB Portable Storage Drive Review @ Legit Reviews
• ADATA DashDrive Air AE400 Wireless Storage Reader and Power Bank Review @ Madshrimps
• Rosewill RDEE-12002 USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure @ techPowerUp
• Corsair Voyager Air 500GB Wireless Storage Device @ Tweaktown
• Transcend StoreJet Cloud 32GB Wireless Storage Device @ Tweaktown
• Kingston MobileLite Wireless Review @ Pro-Clockers
• Synology DS213j review: deluxe entry-level NAS @ Hardware.info
• Icy Dock FlexCage MB975SP-B 5x3.5" in 3x5.25" HDD Cage Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• Shuttle OMNINAS KD20 @ techPowerUp
• iStarUSA BPU-340SATA Military Grade Drive Enclosure @ NikKTech
• LaCie CloudBox 1TB Personal NAS @ Tweaktown

Western Digital refreshes enterprise lineup, launches new Se series datacenter HDD

Subject: Storage | May 28, 2013 - 08:15 AM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: Xe, western digital, wdc, se, RE, hdd

Today Western Digital did a slight rearranging of their enterprise product lineup:

Starting from the top down, the Xe series is essentially a SAS version of their 2.5" 10k RPM VelociRaptor form factor, available in 300GB, 600GB, and 900GB capacities. The Re series is the same 'RE' we are all familiar with, and is now available in both SAS and SATA. That bottom block, however, is something new:

The Se series is Western Digital's attempt at a lower cost Re series drive, and will be available in capacities up to 4TB. 

So the Se is an Advanced Format version of the Re, designed for reduced workloads. Throughput is slightly reduced due to differences in track geometry, though WD let me know they expect final shipping Se's may be closer to the Re spec than the slide indicates. The Se carries the same RPM as well as StableTrac (where the spindle is supported at both ends), RAFF (where accelerometers compensate for chassis vibration), and TLER (where IO request timeouts are adjusted to play nicely with hardware RAID).

The key to the success of the Se will be just what sort of reduced cost Western Digital is able to price the drive at. That information, as well as a full review of an Se, will be coming later today, just as soon as our next batch of samples arrives.

HGST Develops 1.5TB 2.5" Mobile Drive With 500GB Platter Tech

Subject: Storage | May 21, 2013 - 10:01 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: hgst, western digital, 500GB platter, 1.5tb drive, mobile hard drive

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST, which is now owned by Western Digital) has developed a new 2.5” mobile hard drive called the Travelstar 5K1500. The hard drive uses three 500GB platter drives for a total capacity of 1.5TB. HGST claims that the drive is the highest capacity 9.5mm mobile drive on the market. Additionally, the company has stated that the new drive is faster than its existing two-platter hard drives according to the PCMark Vantage and PCMark 7 benchmark suites.

The 1.5TB Travelstar 5K1500 is a 5400 RPM hard drive with 32MB of on-board cache, a 6Gbps SATA III interface, and shock protection features.

The new mobile drive will be used in external hard drives, all-in-one systems, and notebooks where storage space is valued more than pure performance. It will be available sometime in June for an as-yet-unannounced price point. Another version of the Travelstar 5K1500 that offers automatic encryption of data will be available in Q3 2013.