* Drives are getting smaller, faster and cheaper
There are two trends in hard disk technology that are coming together to create a compelling set of benefits for buyers of servers and storage devices. Drives are getting smaller, faster and cheaper, and you get to reap the benefits.
The first trend is the server and storage manufacturers’ move to Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) devices. Available since about mid-2005, SAS is quickly replacing the older technology of parallel SCSI drives. The main benefit of the SAS technology is speed; data can move in and out of the drives much more quickly in the serial configuration.
The second trend in drive technology is actually enabled by SAS. Because the physical connector of a SAS drive is about a quarter the size of the connector of a traditional SCSI drive, SAS drives have taken a small form factor (SFF). Drives have shrunk from 3.5 inches in size to 2.5 inches. If size matters, then small is good!
The SFF SAS drives address two major concerns of the data center manager: performance and power efficiency. Because the 2.5 inch drives are 70% smaller than the 3.5 inch drives, the distance needed to span the disks to read and write data is shorter, vastly improving performance and reliability. SFF SAS drives deliver, on average, 130% to 150% greater system performance in the same footprint. They also are less likely to fail.
These SFF drives also need 40% less power, meaning they run cooler than previous generations of drives. And because the drives are smaller, there is more room inside the server cabinet to allow for better air circulation. The small size also means that more drives can fit into a cabinet, yielding more capacity to store your data.
The main manufacturers of the SFF SAS drives are Seagate Technologies and Fujitsu Computer Products. Both companies report phenomenal sales of the SFF SAS drives. Seagate, for instance, has sold about 2 million drives in the past nine months. Fujitsu, too, reports that sales of the drives are ramping up steeply.
This is good news for you, the end customer. Unless your company puts together its own servers or storage units, you are likely buying from manufacturers like HP, IBM, Sun and Dell. These companies have jumped on the SFF SAS bandwagon in a big way, especially for blade servers. Because these manufacturers are purchasing huge volumes of the drives, the price per unit is dropping sharply. The economies of scale have allowed Seagate to cut the price of one SFF SAS drive in half in just a year. As the cost of components drop, the price of a complete system drops as well.
The net result is that you can purchase a system that is more reliable, has better performance, and costs less to operate than previous generations of servers and storage devices. This comes at a time when more companies are looking to consolidate servers and move to denser server and storage platforms. Perfect timing!
If you’re interested in learning more about the technical aspects of SAS and specifically SFF SAS, read this article by Richard Scruggs, product marketing manager for HP’s Industry Standard Server Division. Also, Fujitsu offers a few white papers about the technology, and Seagate provides information about its Savvio line of SFF SAS drives.
If you’re more interested in the business benefits of a complete system that has SFF SAS drives as a component, check out this article on cutting data center costs.
