Toshiba Announces AL14SX Series 2.5-inch 15K RPM Hard Drives

btarunr · Jun 13, 2017

Toshiba Corporation's Storage & Electronic Devices Solutions Company today announced the launch of AL14SX Series, new additions to its line-up of enterprise performance hard disk drives (HDD) for mission critical server and storage applications. Sample shipments start today.

The AL14SX Series of 15,000RPM 2.5-inch drives features a 12 Gbit/s SAS interface. Available models are 4K native (4Kn) model and 512 emulation (512e) model that feature Advanced Format Sector Technologies, and 512 native (512n) model optimized for legacy applications and hypervisor environments. The AL14SX Series delivers a suitable choice for customers' diverse applications.

The AL14SX Series is available in 300 GB, 600 GB and 900 GB capacities. The 900 GB model offers a 50% increase in maximum capacity from the 600 GB of the predecessor AL13SX Series. The 4Kn and 512e models also delivers an approximately 19% increase in sustained data rate, pushing it to 290 MB/s, and an approximately 28.7% improvement in power efficiency (W/GB). These improvements in capacity, speed and power-saving contribute to a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for the server and system.

Customers also can select models supporting Sanitize Instant Erase (SIE), which realizes fast invalidation of data recorded on the disks, allowing for efficient disposal and reuse.

For more information, visit this page.

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Nuckles56 · Jun 13, 2017

I'm trying to work out who would actually be using these drives still

Prima.Vera · Jun 13, 2017

The size of those are ridiculously small. They are off by a "0" if they want to impress with those drives. 300GB??? Seriously?? Is frickin' 2017!! LOL

arterius2 · Jun 13, 2017

Prima.Vera said:
The size of those are ridiculously small. They are off by a "0" if they want to impress with those drives. 300GB??? Seriously?? Is frickin' 2017!! LOL

lol

arterius2 · Jun 13, 2017

Nuckles56 said:
I'm trying to work out who would actually be using these drives still

I guess it's for people who wants neither capacity nor speed.

notb · Jun 13, 2017

Nuckles56 said:
I'm trying to work out who would actually be using these drives still

Pretty much everyone.
Enterprise-grade SSD are still hugely expensive.

Current 960GB Toshiba SAS SSD costs around 1100 EUR.
This 900GB SAS HDD will cost around 300 EUR.

Ubersonic · Jun 13, 2017

Prima.Vera said:
The size of those are ridiculously small. They are off by a "0" if they want to impress with those drives. 300GB??? Seriously?? Is frickin' 2017!! LOL

SAS/SCSI were/are always smaller in size than SATA/PATA, they are performance orientated not capacity orientated, the available capacity will always be higher as they are designed to be used in RAID.

BorgOvermind · Jun 13, 2017

Ubersonic said:
SAS/SCSI were/are always smaller in size than SATA/PATA, they are performance orientated not capacity orientated, the available capacity will always be higher as they are designed to be used in RAID.

The 2.5" are used as system drives.
For data storage, there are plenty of 3.5" SAS and SATA (like WD Gold/RE) options.

notb · Jun 13, 2017

BorgOvermind said:
The 2.5" are used as system drives.
For data storage, there are plenty of 3.5" SAS and SATA (like WD Gold/RE) options.

WD Gold is a disk from a different category. They prioritize capacity, not speed (3.5", 7200 RPM).
A WD equivalent for Toshiba's 15K drives was called XE and has been discontinued.

It's not easy to make a 3.5" 15K drive, but the actual reason behind 2.5" HDD popularity is much simpler.
2U rack is 3.5" high, but a 3.5" HDD is 4" wide, so it won't fit mounted vertically.

As a result a 2U can hold just 12x 3.5" drives, but up to 24x 2.5".

Duality92 · Jun 13, 2017

My main rig has a 4TB 2.5" drive for storage from Seagate. With that purchase, I think I'll never buy another 3.5" drive for myself.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/vn648d/seagate-4tb-25-5400rpm-internal-hard-drive-st4000lm016

_JP_ · Jun 13, 2017

Nuckles56 said:
I'm trying to work out who would actually be using these drives still

Prima.Vera said:
The size of those are ridiculously small. They are off by a "0" if they want to impress with those drives. 300GB??? Seriously?? Is frickin' 2017!! LOL

18TB RAID 60 says "Hi".

HopelesslyFaithful · Jun 13, 2017

Prima.Vera said:
The size of those are ridiculously small. They are off by a "0" if they want to impress with those drives. 300GB??? Seriously?? Is frickin' 2017!! LOL

2.5in 15K drive derp derp. Shocked there is a 900GB model. Thats impressive but clearly your ignorant so....

Static~Charge · Jun 13, 2017

HopelesslyFaithful said:
Thats impressive but clearly your ignorant so....

The ignorance seems to be spreading.... :laugh:

dir_d · Jun 13, 2017

Id rather go with SATA SM SSD's from Samsung, no reason for these drives unless you've got a hell of a cache software.

notb · Jun 13, 2017

dir_d said:
Id rather go with SATA SM SSD's from Samsung, no reason for these drives unless you've got a hell of a cache software.

Samsung SM is a SATA drive. SAS drives are (were?) named PM. And once again: we're talking about 3x higher cost for going SSD. Keep in mind a large HDD RAID will offer good performance anyway.

HopelesslyFaithful · Jun 14, 2017

notb said:
Samsung SM is a SATA drive. SAS drives are (were?) named PM. And once again: we're talking about 3x higher cost for going SSD. Keep in mind a large HDD RAID will offer good performance anyway.

additionally they dont wear out and can easily be wiped.

R-T-B · Jun 14, 2017

HopelesslyFaithful said:
additionally they dont wear out and can easily be wiped.

True about the "they don't wear out" part, but nearly all SSDs can be easily wiped too, just sayin'

HopelesslyFaithful · Jun 18, 2017

R-T-B said:
True about the "they don't wear out" part, but nearly all SSDs can be easily wiped too, just sayin'

that is factually false. You can not wipe OP and other sections under normal operations like you can with HDDs. There are hidden sections of SSDs where HDDs do not have that. Only way to wipe an SSD is using manufacturer sanitize feature and i dont trust that is 100% complete wipe. This also requires it to not be in an HBA and other restrictions and all data is lost. No free space wipe is possible on an SSD

Additonally, wiping a SSD adds a lot of wear. Also you can't full wipe free space as i stated above with an SSD and even if you could that is a ton of wear. When I had an HDD as my main drive i wiped free space weekly. If that was even possible on an SSD you would wear it out significantly.

Also there is no way to use magnets or degauss an SSD like you can with a HDD. You can instantly trash a HDD but you can't do that with an SSD.

R-T-B · Jun 18, 2017

The crypto sanitize feature under Opal is well documented, and that's indeed what I was referring to. Wipe to me = full drive wipe, I wasn't thinking partial at all.

HopelesslyFaithful · Jun 18, 2017

R-T-B said:
The crypto sanitize feature under Opal is well documented, and that's indeed what I was referring to. Wipe to me = full drive wipe, I wasn't thinking partial at all.

wiping free space is important to clear things cached to your rig you dont want cached. Or data you deleted but want to ensure its 100% gone.

R-T-B · Jun 18, 2017

HopelesslyFaithful said:
wiping free space is important to clear things cached to your rig you dont want cached. Or data you deleted but want to ensure its 100% gone.

We're talking in the context of enterprise server drives though?

HopelesslyFaithful · Jun 19, 2017

R-T-B said:
We're talking in the context of enterprise server drives though?

yes and data security is important. Wiping free space while saving current data is important. It isn't practical to pull a drive out save data wipe it and reload it. If you want to wipe old data on an SSD it simply isn't possible while it is live in a system. On regular HDDs it is.

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Toshiba Announces AL14SX Series 2.5-inch 15K RPM Hard Drives

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