Hitachi Ultrastar C15K147 & Ultrastar 15K600 Hard Drives [New Ultrastar Self-Encrypting 15,000RPM HDDs Aimed at Mission-Critical, Enterprise Storage Applications]

Hitachi have unveiled two new Ultrastar hard drives, namely the 2.5” Ultrastar C15K147 and the 3.5” Ultrastar 15K600, that are aimed specifically at mission-critical, enterprise storage applications and which, apart from offering self-encrypting capabilities also boast 15,000rmp speeds offering data transfer speeds of up to 6Gb/s.

“Data is the lifeblood of business. It’s continually being stored and served at higher speeds and to an ever-increasing number of customers than ever before,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of marketing, Hitachi GST. “Both of our new Ultrastar 15K RPM enterprise drives give our customers the ability to build out denser storage systems for their customers with better performance and lower power without the expense of adding more racks or data center floor space. With our proven Ultrastar designs and full portfolio of 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch enterprise drives, our customers can continue to benefit from the improved total cost of ownership (TCO) that we help deliver to the data center.”

The new Ultrastar hard drives are detailed by Hitachi as follows:

Ultrastar 15K600 – Highest Capacity for Performance Enterprise

Delivering performance and capacity in one streamlined package, the 600GB Ultrastar 15K600 offers the highest capacity in a 15,000 RPM 3.5-inch form factor, which gives it 33 percent more storage space when compared to its predecessor. Offered in a 6Gb/s SAS or 4Gb/s FCAL interface, the Ultrastar 15K600 provides the reliability and performance required for I/O-intensive applications–such as business processing, decision support, online transaction processing and multi-user applications. With continued sequential performance improvements from generation to generation, the Ultrastar is 23 percent faster than its predecessor. It also features the industry’s largest cache buffer at 64MB. The Ultrastar 15K600 family is available in 300GB, 450GB and 600GB capacities.

Ultrastar C15K147 – High Performance for Confined Spaces

Licensed to speed in small spaces, the new 2.5-inch Ultrastar C15K147 delivers 70 percent more space efficiency compared to standard 3.5-inch enterprise hard drives, allowing system integrators and OEMs to pack more high performance drives into compact servers for space-constrained data centers. By combining a small 2.5-inch form factor with the performance that only a 15,000 RPM drive can offer, the Ultrastar C15K147 delivers an 11 percent higher sequential performance, and a 23 percent faster seek time when compared to its 10,000 RPM cousin. And because the drive uses Hitachi’s patented Advanced Power Management technology, the Ultrastar C15K147 uses 50 percent less power than similar 3.5-inch Hitachi drives. The Ultrastar C15K147 is available in 73GB and 147GB capacities and features a 64MB cache buffer.

Both of Hitachi’s new 15,000rpm HDDs are apparently rolling out as of now though, at this juncture, we have been unable to obtain pricing information (Hitachi’s press release makes no mention of retail pricing).