Seagate announced a 300GB version of its Savvio 10K rpm drive, the highest 2.5" SAS capacity yet available.  Is this the dawning of the Age of Small Form Factor for enterprise storage?  Information Week thinks so.

The server market has already made the turn.  HP and other high-volume server makers have committed to 2.5" SAS drives for performance servers.  Power, size and reliability benefits make it a no-brainer.  And while 2.5" hasn't yet taken over servers from system builders, the switchover has begun.

For storage systems, the capacity just hasn't been there. At 300GB, it may be.  A 2.5" drive is 70% smaller than 3.5" SAS drives, which max out at 450GB today (although 600 GB will be along before long). 

What say you?  How are you using 2.5" 10K or 15K drives in storage applications today?

Velociraptor

300 GB, SATA 3 GBPS, 16MB Cache y todo corriendo a 10,000 RPM construido en el desempeño del WD Raptor con un costo aproximado a los $350 dls + IVA por un disco duro de 300GB. Dirijido al publico "entusiasta" o que utiliza equipos de alto rendimiento para diversos usos como juegos, edicion de Audio/Video, etc.

Back in the day, high performance enterprise drives were all about performance, with little capacity to speak of.  The performance is still there in spades, as you can see in this review. But maximum capacity has gone through the roof. 

This is yet another sign of the sea change in business use of information, exponentially increasing content volume and capacity requirements for even the most rigorous enterprise applications.

By the way, Seagate has launched the next generation of these high capacity, high performance drives.  The Cheetah 15K.6 ships with up to 450GB (almost a half terabyte!), and it's faster yet.