Seagate readies high-end Cheetah hard drives
updated 01:05 pm EST, Tue January 13, 2009
New Seagate Cheetah drives
Storage builder Seagate has announced two new hard drives, the Cheetah 15K.7 and NS.2. The drives are intended explicitly for enterprise storage, but come in the more conventional 3.5-inch format instead of the 2.5-inch size used by many corporations. The 15K.7 is claimed to be the fastest 3.5-inch enterprise drive, rated at 15,000rpm with a seek time of 3.4ms. The drive can also be connectied through 6Gbps SAS 2.0 or 4Gbps Fibre Channel interfaces.
The NS.2 takes an opposite approach, and is said to provide the lowest power consumption of any similarly-sized drive, 20 percent less than Seagate's own previous equivalent. The new model is also similar in specifications to the 15K.7, but spins at only 10,000rpm, and has a seek time of 3.8ms.
Both the 15K.7 and NS.2 are being produced in 300, 450 and 600GB capacities. The NS.2 is already shipping; the 15K.7 is currently available to OEM testers, but will only ship commercially in the next quarter.
