Seagate EE25.2 Optimizing Storage for Extreme Environments (87K, PDF) - Page 4

Optimizing Storage for Extreme Environments- EE25.2 Series™ Hard Drives, Flash Solid-State Drives and Standard 2.5-Inch Hard Drives Performance Reality Check: Seagate® EE25.2 Series™ Drive vs. Samsung Flash Drive Benchmark Seagate EE25.2 Series 2.5-Inch Drive (80 GB)* Samsung 2.5-inch Flash Advantage Drive (16 GB)* PCMark 04 3460 4800 Flash (+38%) Sustained Sequential Reads (MB/s) 59 50 Hard Drive (+18%) Sustained Sequential Writes (MB/s) 52 29 Hard Drive (+79%) Random Reads, 8 KB (IOPS) 70 2450 Flash (+3500%) Random Writes, 8 KB (IOPS) 112 23 Hard Drive (+487%) Random Reads/Writes, 80%R, 20%W 79 80 None (IOPS) * Figures obtained at Seagate Technology, Longmont, Colorado, testing laboratory Bottom line: Depending on the use case, system throughput is virtually the same whether an EE25.2 Series drive or a 2.5-inch flash drive is employed. Cost: The Ultimate Difference Simply put, Seagate EE25.2 Series drives of any capacity boast far lower cost-per-GB than either 32-GB or 64-GB 2.5-inch flash drives. Specifically, the street price differential can range from US$500 to over US$1,200. While the flash drive's higher price is sobering when contemplating a single-unit purchase, it is positively staggering in the context of a trucking firm that wants to add 500 GPS units (each equipped with a drive) to its fleet. Part of the flash drive's cost premium comes from its need to use more expensive single-level cell (SLC) flash memory to ensure satisfactory performance and a sufficient number of read/ write cycles. Less expensive multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory is not practicable, as such memory requires more chips to meet a given capacity requirement, uses more power, is less tolerant of heat and cold, and enables only a fraction of the read/write cycles possible with SLC memory. To put flash drive cost in a different perspective, its price must drop by 50 percent every year until 2011 for it to be cost-competitive with hard drive storage (based on Seagate Technology projections). And the flash drive's reliance on more expensive SLC memory will make that ambitious goal even more difficult to attain. Conclusion The Seagate EE25 Series family of ruggedized disk drives represents a profound advance in hard drive durability and flexibility, enabling storage in a broad variety of extreme environments. Significantly more robust than standard 2.5-inch laptop drives, Seagate EE25.2 Series drives incorporate advanced engineering features while maintaining the remarkably low cost-per-GB that characterizes hard drive storage. In theory, flash drives offer advantages in terms of weight, power consumption, ruggedness and performance. But in practice, these benefits are largely unrealized, overshadowed by the vast price penalty that flash drives impose. Bottom line? In real-world applications, the Seagate EE25.2 Series drive delivers comparable functionality at far lower cost. AMERICAS ASIA / PACIFIC EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA Seagate Technology LLC 920 Disc Drive, Scotts Valley, California 95066, United States, 831-438-6550 Seagate Technology International Ltd. 7000 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, Singapore 569877, 65-6485-3888 Seagate Technology SAS 130-136, rue de Silly, 92773, Boulogne-Billancourt Cedex, France 33 1-4186 10 00 Copyright © 2007 Seagate Technology LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. Seagate, Seagate Technology and the Wave logo are registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC in the United States and/or other countries. EE25 Series, Momentus and RunOn are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or one of its affiliated companies in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. When referring to hard drive capacity, one gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes and one terabyte, or TB, equals one trillion bytes. Your computer's operating system may use a different standard of measurement and report a lower capacity. In addition, some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus will not be available for data storage. Quantitative usage examples for various applications are for illustrative purposes. Actual quantities will vary based on various factors, including file size, file format, features and application software. Seagate reserves the right to change, without notice, product offerings or specifications. Publication Number: TP585.1-0712US, December 2007