Seagate ST3750330NS Seagate Barracuda ES.2 SAS Hard Drives and LSI MegaRAID SA - Page 2

Tiers of Storage Online Nearline Low-cost Server Desktop Online • Transactional applications • Constant and immediate access to data • Critical databases, Large email servers • Powered on 24x7 • High IOPs and high duty cycles Nearline • Economical storage for reference data • Archival, medical imaging, multimedia, supercomputing • Stores massive amounts of data • Access to data must be quick and easy Low-cost Server • Departmental workgroups/small group of users • File/print serving, small web or email servers • Powered on 24x7, utilized mopre 8x5 • Mix low duty cycle/high duty cycle demands • Equipment cost/support major consideration Desktop • Least demanding • Single user • Email, word processing, web browsing • Powered on 8x5 Servers are typically powered on 24x7, they are utilized mostly during normal business hours. Consequently, these servers have long durations of low duty cycle demands mixed with short durations of high duty cycle demands, when hard drives are heavily relied on. Equipment cost and support is also a major consideration when purchasing for this segment. Nearline storage fills the gap between offline (archival) and online (primary) enterprise storage. These systems are designed to provide economical storage and quick access to reference data for organizations trying to improve existing tape backup, archiving, and overall data protection. Nearline applications - such as medical imaging, multimedia, and supercomputing - require effective management of large amounts of data that is not as critical as online data, but still needs to be accessed quickly and easily. With total costs lower than primary storage and overall performance better than desktop, Nearline storage helps organizations store and manage massive amounts of data more efficiently and reliably. Online storage, also known as primary storage, is best suited for transactional applications that require constant and immediate access to data. These applications, ranging from highly critical databases to email servers, rely on exceptional performance, reliability and availability. Online storage is powered on 24x 7, handles mostly random requests, and has high IOPS and high duty cycles. For that reason, enterprise-class SAS drives, such as Seagate Savvio or Cheetah drives, are the only choice for online storage. With the features and capabilities of SATA hard drives encroaching into the SAS hard drive space and vice versa, it is easy to see why the lines have blurred on when and where to use desktop SATA, enterprise SATA, enterprise SAS and now Tier 2 SAS hard drives. Traditionally, the difference in price/ gigabyte between SATA and SAS hard drives has been a barrier to entry for those contemplating using SAS. With desktop drives at $0.15/GB, enterprise SATA drives at $0.25/GB and enterprise SAS drives at nearly $2.00/GB, many buyers opt for one of the SATA solutions. The dollars per gigabyte of SATA outweighed the performance and reliability advantages of SAS in some environments. That is why SAS has historically been reserved for the Tier 1, mission-critical applications where performance and rock-solid reliability are key and cost is not the primary consideration. The disparity between SATA and SAS adoption rates has not gone unnoticed by some vendors though. In early 2007, LSI reduced pricing on the MegaRAID SAS/SATA value line adapters to match competitor's SATA-only RAID adapter pricing. This provided customers with the flexibility to create tiered storage with SATA and/or SAS hard drives with no cost premium, while also protecting their investment in storage. With the introduction of the Barracuda ES.2 product line, Seagate is offering the first SAS hard drive with 1 Terabyte (TB) capacity. Barracuda ES.2 SAS drives use a SATA drive platform (7200rpm) coupled with enterprise SAS electronics (similar to those of the Cheetah 15k family). The result is a hard drive with SATA capacities, but with an enterprise-class SAS interface. With only pennies per gigabyte separating their Enterprise SATA and Tier 2 SAS drives, it is clear that Seagate also recognizes the desire for SAS features at SATA pricing. Seagate Barracuda ES.2 and LSI MegaRAID SAS/SATA Adapters 2