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IBM has delivered a new industrial-strength server hard disk drive designed to take on the most intensive business environments. The Ultrastar 146Z10 debuts with new anti-vibration technology called Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS), designed to improve performance in large disk arrays.
Available now, the 146Z10 is the first 10,000 RPM hard drive of its generation to ship in volume and has a top capacity of 146 GB. To enhance performance, the drive comes with a large eight MB cache.
RVS addresses a problem inherent to multi-drive systems. As rotational speeds have increased and multiple drives are housed in powerful disk arrays, vibration is exacerbated and results in performance degradation. RVS represents advanced servo technology that autonomically compensates for vibration caused by multiple disk drives operating simultaneously. It intelligently identifies the direction and intensity of the vibration and cancels out the deleterious effects of the vibration. IBM is the first to implement the technology for mass production.
“We have the utmost confidence that the Ultrastar 146Z10 will give customers what they need and break the strides of our competitors,” said Doug Grose, general manager, IBM Storage Technology Division. “Combined technology leadership and comprehensive qualification testing in the new Ultrastar put us in great position to succeed in the server hard drive marketplace.”
To enhance business-critical reliability and performance, IBM has reinforced the Ultrastar with advanced software for disk drive intelligence and self-analysis; antiferromagnetically-coupled media (AKA “pixie dust”) for temperature and data stability; and sophisticated read/write component designs for high-speed recording and data access.
The drive has undergone extensive testing in a variety of simulated customer environments with overwhelmingly positive results. In laboratory stress tests, the 146Z10 demonstrated a reliability rate consistent with the most demanding requirements for server hard drives.
“We’ve worked to ensure the integrity of the Ultrastar 146Z10 as a trusted work horse and data backbone for businesses worldwide, and are delighted with the reliability results,” added Grose.
“In our own testings, the Ultrastar 146Z10 clearly lives up to its ‘rock-solid’ promise, which makes it a valuable addition to Bell Microproducts’ comprehensive range of storage offerings,” said Jerry Kagele, executive vice president, Computer Products, Bell Microproducts.” As one of the world’s largest storage-centric value-added distributors, we’re excited to bring such a high-quality hard disk drive to the market and to provide buyers with a broad selection of server-class products.”
According to IBM the 146Z10 shows more than a 15-percent increase in sustained data throughput and 10-percent improvement in WinBench metrics over previous generation drives.. The drive, which is available in 18, 36, 73 and 146 GB capacities, also delivers low acoustics and a high level of power efficiency and shock tolerance.
