Seagate sets 10 million mark for 15K-rpm drives

New Delhi: Seagate Technology (NYSE: STX), has announced the he shipment of its ten-millionth 15K-rpm disc drive that are used in over two-thirds of all storage drives world-wide. Seagate first delivered the world''s first 15K-rpm disc drive in 2001, which it innovated and continues to make its fourth generation Cheetah 15K.4. used by storage device manufacturers as the core technology for their ''enterprise'' storage products.

According to IDC''s David Reinsel, director of storage research, "Seagate''s 15K Cheetah comprise over two-thirds of all 15K-rpm drives shipped world-wide over the same time frame. Market acceptance and adoption of 15K-rpm drives more than doubled from 2002 to 2004."

"A large percentage of major OEMs deliver storage solutions that can be centrally managed and provide a high level of IOPS per square foot, which plays to the strength of 15K-rpm drives," adds Reinsel.

Announcing the shipment of the 10 millionth drive, Jeff Loebbaka, Seagate''s vice president of global marketing, said, "Seagate is proud to have led the industry transition for 3.5-inch drives from 10K to 15K and this milestone signals a changing of the guard for enterprise storage." He explained that 15K drives had now become the standard choice for enterprise storage solutions and at the same time, 2.5-inch enterprise-class drives are emerging to meet the need for new high I/O density platforms.

The Cheetah 15K.4, which Seagate says delivers 30 per cent more I/O''s per second and 20 per cent faster response times than 3.5-inch 10K-rpm drives, is its best price-per-performance disc drive from Seagate.

The drive comes in 36, 73, and 147 GBs, and is available in Ultra320 SCSI and fibre channel interfaces and will be offered in the latest Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface. A single SAS storage subsystem will be able to house Seagate''s GB NL35 Serial ATA (SATA) drives used for near-line storage in the same enclosure as the 3.5-inch Cheetah 15K.4, used for online storage. Seagate says SAS''s would provide point-to-point, full duplex architecture and 3.0 GBs transfer.