Conclusion

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From a performance standpoint, the professional hard drives clearly outperform everything in the desktop and consumer space. The maximum transfer rates are between 90 and 128 MB/s; access times are in the range of 5.5 and 6.5 ms.

The category of 10,000 RPM 3.5" professional SAS/SCSI hard drives will be phased out during the next few years, as they cannot compete with the high capacities of top-end Serial ATA drives any more. At the same time, the 3.5" 10k SCSI/SAS drives cannot outperform the 2.5" professional drives, nor their 3.5" 15,000 RPM counterparts. The performance future clearly belongs to high-density 2.5" SAS storage arrays for highest I/O scores, and 3.5" 15,000 RPM setups for maximum data transfer rates. The high-capacity space will be dominated by modified SATA drives, which offer unmatched cost per capacity ratios. The cost savings even allow administrators to deploy setups with multiple redundancy. All professional products, whether host adapters or hard drives, come with a manufacturer warranty of five years.

The clear performance winner is Seagate's new Cheetah 15K.5 at 300 GB. With a 128 MB/s maximum transfer speed and an amazing minimum transfer rate of 73 MB/s, it is the fastest hard drive ever. But the drive suffers from relatively long access times of 6.6 ms. For I/O-intensive applications, the 2.5" Savvio 15K.1, also by Seagate, is a much better choice. We measured a 5.5 ms average access time, while its transfer rates of up to 104 MB/s are not bad either, which is the second best result after the Cheetah 15K.5.

Comparison Table

Manufacturer Fujitsu Hitachi Hitachi Hitachi Hitachi
Series MAX3 RC Ultrastar 10K300 Ultrastar 15K147 Ultrastar 15K147 Ultrastar 15K147
Model MAX3147RC HUS103014FL3800 HUS151436VL3800 HUS151473VL3800 HUS151414VL3600
Capacity 147 GB 147 GB 36 GB 73 GB 147 GB
Rotation Speed 15000 RPM 10000 RPM 15000 RPM 15000 RPM 15000 RPM
Platter 4 Discs 3 Discs 2 Discs 3 Discs 5 Discs
Cache 16 MB 8 MB 8 MB 8 MB 8 MB
Interface SAS Ultra320 Ultra320 Ultra320 Ultra320
Form Factor 3.5" 3.5" 3.5" 3.5" 3.5"
 
Manufacturer Hitachi Hitachi Hitachi Hitachi  
Series Ultrastar 15K147 Ultrastar 15K147 Ultrastar 15K147 Ultrastar 15K73  
Model HUS151436VLS300 HUS151473VLS300 HUS151414VLS300 HUS157373EL3600  
Capacity 36 GB 73 GB 147 GB 73 GB  
Rotation Speed 15000 RPM 15000 RPM 15000 RPM 15000 RPM  
Platter 2 Discs 3 Discs 5 Discs 5 Discs  
Cache 16 MB 16 MB 16 MB 8 MB  
Interface SAS SAS SAS Ultra320  
Form Factor 3.5" 3.5" 3.5" 3.5"  
 
Manufacturer IBM Maxtor Maxtor Maxtor  
Series Ultrastar 18ES Atlas 10K V Atlas 15K Atlas 15K II  
Model DNES-309170 8J300J0 8C073x0 8K147S0  
Capacity 9.1 GB 300 GB 73 GB 147 GB  
Rotation Speed 7200 RPM 10000 RPM 15000 RPM 15000 RPM  
Platter 3 Discs 4 Discs 4 Discs 4 Discs  
Cache 2 MB 8 MB 8 MB 16 MB  
Interface Ultra SCSI Ultra320 Ultra320 SAS  
Form Factor 3.5" 3.5" 3.5" 3.5"  
 
Manufacturer Seagate Seagate Seagate Seagate  
Series Cheetah 15K.4 Cheetah 15K.4 Cheetah 15K.5 Savvio 15K.1  
Model ST373454SS ST3146854SS ST3300655SS ST973451SS  
Capacity 37 GB 146 GB 300 GB 73 GB  
Rotation Speed 15000 RPM 15000 RPM 15000 RPM 15000 RPM  
Platter 1 Discs 4 Discs 4 Discs 2 Discs  
Cache 8 MB 8 MB 16 MB 16 MB  
Interface SAS SAS SAS SAS  
Form Factor 3.5" 3.5" 3.5" 2.5"  

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