Small Form Factor SCSI Hard Drive Debuts

KingFishKingFish
edited October 2004 in Science & Tech
In a bid to shrink proportions without sacrificing speed, Seagate has introduced the Savvio line of 2.5" SCSI hard drives. These diminutive drives are not only 70% smaller than 3.5" drives, they also spin at 10K-RPM and boast lower seek times than their full-size counterparts.
While its transfer rate and seek time specs differ from the Cheetah, the Savvio shares its big brother's 10K-RPM spindle speed, 8MB cache, and 37GB platter capacity. The Savvio is only available in 37 and 73GB capacities, though. With Cheetahs available up to 147GB and new 10K-RPM SCSI drives from Maxtor and Hitachi Global Storage pushing 300GB, the Savvio has a definite disadvantage in storage capacity per drive. Savvio drives are a little less than 70% smaller than 3.5" disks by volume and less than a third of their weight. To put that in perspective, a single Savvio is roughly the size of a deck of cards—you need three Savvios to approach the volume of one 3.5" hard drive. In certain RAID configurations, the Savvio's smaller stature can also make up for its limited single-drive storage capacity. Take RAID, for example. A minimum of two drives are required for RAID 1, three drives for RAID 5, and four drives for RAID 0+1 or 10. With Savvios taking up less space, it's easier to squeeze multi-drive arrays into small enclosures. Heck, a three-drive Savvio RAID 5 array takes up roughly the same volume as a single 3.5" hard disk.
Source: Tech Report

Comments

  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    Getting a little closer to laptop SCSI :D
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