HDDs are engineered for mission critical IT operations

4th March 2014

Toshiba

Staff Reporter

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Engineered for mission critical IT operations, a range of HDDs has been announced by Toshiba Electronics Europe. The AL13SX series HDDs with 6Gbit/s SAS interface and 15,000 RPM spindle speed, combine high performance with capacities up to 600GB and compact 2,5 inch (64mm) size.

The AL13SX series offers the highest areal density available in a 15,000 RPM 2.5 inch design, providing a 100% increase in maximum capacity compared to previous generation AL12SX 300GB drives. The drives provide lower latency, superior performance and power savings compared with legacy 3.5 inch 15,000 RPM 600GB models.

Businesses are struggling to cope with the explosion of digital data and demand for rapid access. The AL13SX series helps meet these demands by reducing the footprint and operational burden of Tier 1 mission critical servers, servers hosting transaction-based applications and rack-optimised data centres.

Customers have the choice of AL13SX drives that support 512n, 512e, or 4Kn storage formats. The long sector (512e and 4Kn) models reach sustained transfer rates up to 243 MiB/s – an increase of 27% compared to previous generation drives. The 512 native models provide an increase of 19%, with sustained transfer rates reaching 228 MiB/s.

The 4Kn drives offer optimum performance and compatibility with the latest applications and operating environments. The native 512n sector and emulated 512e drives provide support for legacy applications and operating environments that require 512 byte sector lengths. Both the 512e and 4Kn models feature Persistent Write Cache technology that enables improved application performance and data-loss protection in the event of unexpected power loss.

Equipped with 6Gbit/s SAS 2.0 interfaces, the AL13SX series can be supplied with self-encryption, and cryptographic self-erase functionality known as Sanitize Instant Erase (SIE). Unlike a regular disk erase, which uses lengthy overwrite operations, the SIE function simply regenerates the encryption key, effectively invalidating all previously stored user data. This allows self-encrypting storage devices to be quickly and securely sanitized before re-allocation, redeployment or retirement.

“15,000 RPM HDDs are the backbone of mission critical IT systems and Toshiba’s AL13SX series doubles drive capacity to 600GB while providing a clear migration pathway to 15,000 RPM 2.5 inch HDDs,” said Martin Larsson, Vice President, Toshiba Electronics Europe, Storage Products Division. “The AL13SX series has lower latency and increased transfer rates, while achieving significant power savings – a real win-win for mission critical storage operations.”