Seagate has quietly expanded its household of Exos Mach.2 exhausting drives that includes two actuators with 4 new fashions that provide increased capability and elevated efficiency. The brand new Exos 2X16 and 2X18 HDDs can match SATA solid-state drives when it comes to sequential learn and write speeds whereas providing capacities of 16TB and 18TB (up from 14TB with earlier technology).
The brand new Seagate Exos 2X18 household consists of six fashions: two 18TB HDDs with a SATA 6 Gbps and SAS 12 Gbps interface in addition to two 16TB SKUs with the mentioned interfaces (through StorageReview). SAS drives are at all times supplied with encryption possibility. As for efficiency, Seagate says that the Exos 2X18/2X16 SATA variations boast with a most sustained switch price of 554 MBps, whereas SAS fashions are rated for a most sustained switch price of 545 MBps, which signifies that these are the world’s quickest HDDs. All 4 drives additionally function a mean latency of 4.16 ms in addition to 304/560 random learn/write IOPS (4K QD16).
The twin-actuator drives use typical magnetic recording, function a 7,200 RPM spindle velocity, a 256MB multisegmented cache, and absolutely assist Seagate’s applied sciences for datacenters, together with PowerChoice (to handle idle energy consumption), PowerBalance (to handle energetic energy consumption), and scorching plug assist. Seagate’s hermetically sealed and helium-filled Mach.2 exhausting drives with two actuators are basically two logical HDDs (or 9TB or 8TB capability) which might be independently addressable and subsequently want some software program tweaks on the host facet.
The important thing benefit of multi-actuator HDDs along with their increased efficiency in comparison with single-actuator exhausting drives is their increased per-TB sequential and random learn efficiency that tends to get decrease as exhausting drive capability will get increased. Growing the variety of actuators that work independently basically doubles efficiency, however this comes at the price of elevated energy consumption. The brand new Exos 2X16 and Exos 2X18 HDDs from Seagate devour 7.8W/8W in idle (SATA/SAS) in addition to as much as 13.5W/12.8W underneath heavy masses (SATA/SAS), which is in step with the first-generation Mach.2 HDDs.
Seagate has been experimenting with dual-actuator HDDs with Microsoft since late 2017, however then expanded availability to pick different companions. With its Exos 2X16 and Exos 2X18 households, Seagate most likely additional expands availability of its Mach.2 HDDs as now it makes them out there with a widespread SATA interface. Whether or not or not such merchandise will probably be out there in retail to those that need an ultra-fast HDD is one thing that continues to be to be seen, however not less than these SATA drives can be utilized with a wider vary of techniques than their predecessors.
Since Seagate’s Exos 2X16 and 2X18 drives are designed primarily for datacenters, the corporate doesn’t disclose their pricing because it closely depends upon volumes and precise configurations.
The brand new Mach.2 drives include a five-year guarantee and are designed to work in 24/7 environments. In the meantime, Seagate doesn’t disclose each year TB workload ranking for these HDDs.
