15K.5 Series from Seagate Previewed

Several years ago, Seagate decided not to produce 10k rpm SCSI devices in 3.5 form factor anymore. Instead, they pointed out the fact that a 2.5 SCSI device runs cooler and is in general more size-efficient than a 3.5 inch one, reason for which the 10k.7 was the last drive of its series. Seagate concentrated its efforts in developing a new series based on the 15k rpm 3.5 inch drives resulting eventually in a totally new product.

Cheetah drive series were always at the top when considering pure server throughout and command queuing. This time though, they are offering all that and even more, quite a reliable fellow equipped with nothing less than 300GB of space. That amount of space is achieved by using the already known "Perpendicular Recording" technology. Though implementing a technology developed for the IDE interface onto a fast SCSI device was no easy thing, perpendicular recording is at its best here, complemented by a low access time of 5.8 to 6.3 ms varying from read to write. Speeds up to 135MB/s in read mode and 83MB/s in write mode can be attained when using this drive; however, when you put it to heavy work, the number of IOs per second won't exceed 660-700, depending on the tested application. 15K.5 really shines in server patterns using a queue depth where it scores higher than any even the Maxtor Atlas 15K II Series standing up to his name.

Though it's a little noisy and not the fastest drive when loading single task scenarios, the new 15K.5 Series is a fast and reliable product meant specifically for server and multitasking scenarios use. Maybe it would have been a little better if Seagate would switch its products to SAS serial transfer, especially because of the ergonomics, but you can say for sure that the latest Cheetah drive runs like it should.