New generation of hard drives 10,000 tours in Toshiba

Businesses looking for hard drives quick plates spinning at 10 K rpm can move towards the new Toshiba pro range.

It is the turn of Toshiba occupying the scene with its new generation of disk drives trays specially studied for the business world. With a speed of rotation to 10,500 t/m, the new AL13SE is 2.5 inches with a SAS 2.0 6 Gb/s interface to the format and is offered in several sizes: 300 GB, 450 GB and 600 GB same 900 GB.

With a 64 MB cache, it offers 3.7 ms read and 4.1 ms write response times, we are far from the DSS, but the comparison can be made with this type of business-oriented material with 24/7 operation times since he displays a 2 million hours MTBF and increases the speed of data transfer of 32% over the previous generation. Toshiba ensures that its new drives offer retro-compatibility with the sizes of 512-byte sectors.

In addition, this new series hard drives for companies custody system of decrease in the speed of rotation of the platters to reduce energy consumption and reduce heating. For companies have 3.5-inch disks to the format-based storage systems, Toshiba offers its AL13SE range with an additional adapter to facilitate their installation.

These discs are accompanied by five years manufacturer warranty. Toshiba has not yet release public prices of its new range. Need to make contact with his usual reseller to obtain.

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Hard drives: the return to a mass production in Thailand will take time

Digitimes Research table on a resumption of intensive production in Thailand to the beginning of the second quarter of 2012, and as soon as early January as some believed.

Everyone knows that the floods in Thailand had a strong impact on the delivery of the hard drives, in fact increasing the rates of these parts. If production chains are distributed on the whole, the climate catastrophe caused a net loss on sales of the fourth quarter, reflected in the figures of Intel.

Several sources suggest that the return to a normal production in the stricken region will be next February. Assemblers, living on their stocks, are able to maintain production as with almost 20 million disks on their shelves. Western Digital HDD parts manufacturers, think able to return to 70% of their production capacity for March 2012, three months after the scheduled date. Although it should be remembered that WD is a case apart and is the most affected by the Thai floods.

Hard disk production table according to Digitimes Research

On the second quarter, Digitimes Research estimates that manufacturers will be able to ensure the production of 165 million units, or only a million units less the demand. To catch up and redo stock, production units out half a million additional hard disks for the third and fourth quarters of 2012.

Concerning the prices of these products, from our information and contrary to the chart, the first quarter of 2012 will not really good season for the purchase of hard drives, and it is likely that resellers will be able to revise downward the rates from mid-2012, even if stocks are not yet fully back. Of course, these estimates will be subject to evolution with what actually happens in manufacturing of hard drives.

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The shortage of hard drives pushes Facebook, Google in the arms of HP

HP presented its financial results for the quarter elapsed (August, September, October). They show a shortness of the giant: the period of 2010, net sales down 3%, the gross margin of 7.4 points and the net profit of 91%. However, this dramatic fall of the benefit is to the assets of the judgment of webOS devices, which cost the firm 2.1 billion.

However, Meg Whitman, the recent HP CEO is fairly optimistic for the end of the year. His company was indeed the fastest to react to the Thai floods that result in a hard drives acute shortage. HP has immediately set up a crisis cell, made stocks and past commands at the beginning of October. Thus, Whitman think that HP will receive a greater portion of the remaining production than its competitors. To emphasize its advantage, Whitman has had this vindictive comment "we hear all the time that people contruisent their own servers [...]". but for the moment, they do not build their own servers because they can not have hard drives. Then they call us... Yes, the Google, the Facebook call us. »

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Hard drives: Western Digital production resumes

Small update on the situation of Western Digital in Thailand, where the manufacturer has been able to reopen one of its production units.

We follow closely the situation in Thailand, where Western Digital - disk hard - a world leader in saw its plants be put out of action produce following terrible floods. Since then, everyone is his commentary on the shortage begins to strike and could continue for a good part of the year 2012. Which has the impact visible to blow up the prices of the drives, as we see there is little in analyzing price at online stores.

In this context, any encouraging news is good to take. In this case, it is Western Digital announced have been able to boost its production on one of its sites where floods receded, at Bang Pa - In. A site where a single plant to resumed, while she was drowned under 2 metres of water since October 15. Rule pumping and a reconstruction of the power supply helped revive manufacturing. In the other buildings at the site, reclamation continues and the machines were transported to be analyzed and repaired.

However, Western Digital is not ready to see the end of the tunnel. Indeed, we also learn that another plant of the same site will not resume before March 2012. A plant paramount as it manufactures the sliders of the disks (the heads of reading and writing), forcing the manufacturer to find heads from other suppliers. Finally, Western Digital evaluates for the first time the harm suffered, and considers that the flood will cost him between 225 and 275 million dollars on the only fourth quarter 2011.

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Hard drives: prices drop some as of December

The retention of hard drives by wholesalers could soften and forces of supply and demand calls for lower prices. Bodes well ...

The floods in Thailand have completely changed the hard drive market, the country accounting for 25% of world production record companies and major parts suppliers (such as Nidec, which manufactures the engines rotation) will be unable to turn their factories.

Result, the shortage threat and return to normal production soon ... While the prices of hard drives have exploded, which is not without repercussions on the rest of the industry, among integrators who see their stock market decline and inevitably affected component.

Currently, it is expected therefore primarily new leading manufacturer with plants located in Thailand, like Western Digital, 60% of production is carried out in the country. News that did not really reassuring, since we previously spoke of a shortage is expected to reach its highest level in the first quarter of 2012 ...

Fortunately, the news is better. Indeed, if we are to believe the DigiTimes, wholesalers who jumped on the stocks, nourishing the general panic and contributing to skyrocketing prices, already begin to replenish so reassuring. So that we learn that they should start doing the sorting in their inventories in the coming weeks, so make concessions in scaling back their prices today. At all good for the consumer, according to the Asian site, is expected to affect the return to lower prices in the month of December.

The forces of supply and demand plays in favor of lower prices. Sources from the circuit vendors of hard disks believe that the expectations have been more alarmist than is actually the situation, and that the return to normal was planned for mid-2012 could ultimately place in January or February 2012. One of the plants Nidec was able to resume full production and other suppliers of hard disk manufacturers are now solutions to improve their returns on the lines that work. It only remains to hope that prices come down as fast as they are mounted, which is never easy ...

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-10% of PC delivered in December because of the shortage of hard drives

PC shipments should begin to be slowed by the shortage of hard drives next month ...

Floods in Thailand have severely affected the production of hard drives. So that different resellers announced that they will find it difficult to complete orders in the order of 10% for the month of December.


According to information we have, some retailers such as HP, Dell and Acer have stocks of hard drives that can cover applications for computers for about four weeks. Others would do that for a week, which seems fair enough to deliver the orders of November and possibly early December.

The "drought" stock should hit more violently the market in early 2012 when the impact will be from 40 to 50% on the availability of different types of retailers. If everything comes back in order, Thai manufacturers could return to normal production of hard drives around February to March as seen above, with a peak for the expected shortage in the heart of the first quarter of 2012.

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Octane: new flash drives OCZ in Indilinx Everest!

The Californian manufacturer OCZ has officially announced its first designed around the Indilinx Everest controller flash drives...

OCZ took advantage of the Computex to unveil the first information about the Indilinx Everest controller, before you formalize it in the summer. The Californian manufacturer has just announced the first flash drives designed around this solution supporting Serial ATA 6 Gb/s. Octane adopts a 2.5-inch format. It operates memory flash asynchronous type MLC, engraved to 25 nanometers by IMFT.

Everest has eight channels. With 512 MB memory cache. Octane will be offered in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1024 GB. OCZ advance sequential flows reaching 560 MB/s read and 400 MB/s write. Performance are 45,000 IOPS in reading, and 25,000 write IOPS.

The manufacturer also unveils the Octane S2. This model is flanged in SATA 3 Gb/s. He just also asynchronous flash memory. Sequential data rates are 275 MB/s read, for 265 MB/s write. Random performance should not exceed 30 000 IOPS. OCZ States that the new Indilinx controller supports the command TRIM, NCQ, and encryption of data. Everest would be particularly powerful with uncompressible data (the large low point of the SandForce processor).

The California firm will launch its new beginning November 1. The Octane will display rates within a range of 1.10-1.30 dollar per gigabyte. The 128 GB model would therefore cost about 130 euros.

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WD flows 57.8 million hard drives in a quarter

The American manufacturer Western Digital has announced having sold over 57.8 million hard drives these past three months.

Western Digital has just reveal the results of the quarter ended September 30. The American manufacturer has elapsed 57.8 million hard drives on its first quarter fiscal 2012, a sequence of 4 million and 6.8 million annual increase. This allows him to achieve a turnover of $ 2.70 billion. WD also displays solid profits, in the amount of $ 239 million.

The company is expected to very bad results this quarter. WD had to close its Thai plants on 12 October because of flooding in the country. The constructor produces about 60% of its hard drives. WD should produce between 22 and 26 million HDD in the second quarter of 2012. The CA of the society would fall significantly (to achieve a value between 1.05 and 1.25 billion), and losses are anticipated.

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Reinforced external hard drives and USB 3.0 in ADATA

The Taiwanese manufacturer ADATA unveils new external hard drives reinforced and equipped with a SuperSpeed USB interface.

ADATA expands its line of external storage with enhanced models. The SH14 will be the first incarnation of this Superior Series. This hard disk 122.2 x 82.8 mm x 19.9 mm and it weighs 210 grams. It has a silicone shell, which enables it to withstand the shocks and liquids. Cache a HDD format 2.5 inches and the speed of 5400 RPM. The SH14 will connect to the computer via a SuperSpeed USB interface. It can reach a maximum speed of 90 MB/s.

The Taiwanese manufacturer offers new solutions in capacities of 500 GB, 750 GB and 1 TB. Will be certainly in their bundle software HDDtoGO and OStoGO, and a demo version of the suite Norton Internet Security. ADATA covers this Superior Series of a guarantee of 3 years (like the rest of its range). The SH14 are visible in pre-order in Europe as early as 60, 70 and 90 euros.

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SATA µSSD: an interface for micro flash drives?

SATA-IO also announces a declination of its interface to the embedded flash drives...

SATA-IO is very active this week, since the announcement of the development of SATA Express parallel, the Organization has to reveal a standard for on-board storage systems. SanDisk already uses this "SATA µSSD" for its iSSD. It should be remembered that this solution of 16 x 20 mm x 1.85 mm had been announced as being the smallest in the world. This flash drive is installed on a BGA package which directly welded on the circuit printed motherboard.

SATA µSSD allows to pass the famous storage interface via the electrical signals of the BGA, and therefore to SATA connector. SanDisk solutions are available with capacities of 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB. For the latest news, they could reach speeds of 160 MB/s read, for 100 MB/s write. The appearance of a standard should allow other companies (which have not necessarily means to design their own interface) design storage reduced dimensions.

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Three 2.5" SAS Drives: Enterprise Data Giants, Compared

Currently, 2.5" enterprise drives are leaving their 3.5” competitors behind. They're faster, more flexible, and now they offer comparable capacities (we're up to 1 TB now). In this piece, it's Hitachi versus Seagate battling for high-density supremacy.

SSDs are slowly but surely sending good old magnetic disk drives into retirement...at least when it comes to the workloads that simply cannot get enough performance.

That's certainly the case in the consumer segment, where it is absolutely worthwhile to replace the Windows boot drive with a quick SSD to accelerate the entire system. However, it is not necessarily the best route for enterprise drives.

SSDs Left Out in the Cold?

Finding the right time and place for SSDs is another story altogether in professional storage environments. Although SSDs offer significantly higher I/O performance, other criteria like reliability and system validation also have to be taken into considered. In contrast to hard drives, the reliability of SSDs is less proven, causing IT decision makers to tread lightly before integrating them into mission critical systems.

Moreover, most solid-state drives employ SATA; only a handful of models support the enterprise-class SAS interface (with its dual ports) that ensure optimal protection against a failed HBA. Really, OCZ is the only player making that technology possible right now with its Talos family.

But it is precisely those virtues that our three test candidates use to score their points. Hitachi's Ultrastar C10K600, Seagate's Constellation.2, and Seagate's Savvio 10K.5 all support the established interfaces and configuration paths with their speedy SAS 6 Gb/s ports, and some models even come with Fibre Channel support. Seagate also offers its drives in a self-encrypting model, which runs a 256-bit AES cipher and is marketed to server environments where secure data storage matters most. Our test candidates also perform admirably in terms of reliability: Hitachi and Seagate estimate the MTBF (mean time between failures) for their C10K600 and Savvio 10K.5 at around 2 million hours; this is a high standard even in the enterprise segment.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

We asked enterprise hard drive manufacturers to tell us why 2.5" disks are a good choice in the server segment, and they gave us three reasons. The most obvious has to do with the power consumption of the IT infrastructure. In contrast to 3.5” hard disks, the smaller drives use less power and consequently don't get as warm, therefore requiring less cooling. Because of this form factor, enterprise hard drives require less space in the server cabinet and therefore contribute to improved scalability. The third argument revolves around the capacity of 2.5” drives, which have matched their 3.5” counterparts at the 10 000 and 15 000 RPM spindle speeds. This is demonstrated Seagate's Savvio 10K.5 and Seagate's Constellation.2, which offer 1000 GB and 900 GB of storage, respectively. Our tests show that the 2.5” drives are also equal to many 3.5” drives when it comes to performance.

View the original article here

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