Seagate Constellation.2 2.5'' 1TB SATA / SAS 6Gb/s HDD Storage   Page 1

Reviewer: RWL Staff Article Publish Date: 4/11/2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

    Whenever we have an SAS type HDD review here on RWL many people ask what practical difference in speeds they can expect between SAS and SATA drives and if these differences are really worth the extra buck. Now answering such a question is not that easy since one must have two identical drives with interface type as their sole difference. So since i like to answer pretty much every question people ask of me today with us we have the latest Seagate Constellation.2 2.5" 1TB hard disk drives (ST91000640NS) in both SATA III (6Gb/s) and SAS 6Gb/s which hopefully will give us an overall idea of the differences between SATA and SAS.

 

 

        Founded in 1979, Seagate is the leading provider of storage devices–in 2008, we became the first hard drive manufacturer to ship 1 billion hard drives–with the industry’s broadest product offering. Our products include 2.5–inch and 3.5–inch hard disk drives, solid state drives and hybrid drives (which incorporate both rotating media and flash memory) for compute–intensive enterprise environments that demand high performance, low–power consumption and proven reliability. In 2009, Seagate developed its first solid–state drives (SSDs) that leverage non–volatile flash memory instead of spinning magnetic media. Seagate’s first SSDs were designed for enterprise environments utilizing blade and general server applications. We followed that up in 2010 with a solid state hybrid drive for laptops–a product with a unique algorithm that enables the drive to “learn” which files are needed most often and then places them in the drive’s on–board flash memory for lightning–fast access. Seagate’s products enable high–performance desktop and laptop systems, along with ultraportable devices such as netbooks and thin laptops. We delivered the industry’s first 2TB, 7,200–RPM desktop hard drive, along with the world’s first 7mm, 2.5–inch form factor drive. These innovative storage products deliver super–sized capacities, industry–leading performance, encrypted security features and more.

 

 

    Before we start i must also point out that speed is not the only reason people/companies use SAS drives in their systems. There's also the matter of safety/security in which case SAS drives can offer hard self-encryption of your data and far higher MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) rates than normal SATA drives. Of course these features will not matter much to the casual user and so for this review/comparison at least we will be focusing on the performance both drives deliver.