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Fujitsu Computer Products of America (FCPA) today announced its latest hard drive interface that runs at 3 gigabytes per second (Gbps).
The division of Japan’s Fujitsu that makes data storage drives and computer peripherals reports the new technology is currently being tested by Hewlett Packard .
Small form factor Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
Similar to the logic of employing thin blade servers to power computing resources, the idea for smaller form factor disk drives is rooted in the ongoing trend to conserve space and costs in a data center to whittle down IT costs. The trick is to make them smaller, while at the same time ensuring that the drives can handle enterprise-class loads of data.
The 2.5 inch Fujitsu drive, based on the speedy SAS mode of data transfer, is about one-third smaller than its 3.5-inch brother, and should conserve space, power, and cost for customers looking for improvements to enterprise-level hard drive storage, according to Joel Hagberg, vice president of OEM Sales and Marketing at San Jose, Calif.-based FCPA.
Hagberg says Fujitsu’s 2.5-inch drive will offer up to 73.5 gigabytes of storage coupled with a SAS interface capable of a 300 megabyte data transfer rate at a full 3 Gbps. HP will test the drive’s viability with its HP ProLiant server and storage customers.
Serial technology-based products are broadly replacing their parallel brethren for a number of reasons, including cost, performance, and speed. The Fujitsu SAS interface leverages SCSI with the latest serial technology. Hagberg told internetnews.com Fujitsu expects SAS to become the enterprise input/output interface of choice for the new 2.5 inch hard disk drives.
In addition to the size benefits, IDC analyst Dave Reinsel says arrays employing 2.5-inch drives can use more drives, lower acoustics, and consume less power than 3.5-inch drives.
“This could potentially cut in half the amount of square feet necessary for processing power that we use today,” Reinsel told internetnews.com, noting that vendors could possibly move from 2U racks to 1U racks in a data center. He also says the additional spindles will boost I/O potential and points out that transitioning from a parallel architecture to SAS will provide a roadmap to the future with respect to faster data rates.
Technically, FCPA’s 2.5-inch drive interface is the first of its kind, Reinsel told internetnews.com, although competitors Seagate , Maxtor
, and Hitachi
are hot on Fujitsu’s heels.
“There is a very aggressive race going on to make sure that these suppliers of enterprise-class drives are at or near the forefront of offering 2.5 inch SAS products,” Reinsel concludes.
Story courtesy of Internet News.
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