ST973401LC Savvio SCSI Hard Drive - 73GB Capacity Ultra320 SCSI Seagate $749.99 Click Here Sean Gibson - email

INTRODUCTION

Seagate is one of the top performers when it comes to storage for two very important reasons: 1) The drives are very dependable, and 2) The drives historically perform very well. Having reviewed many different Ultra320 SCSI hard drives in the past, it was with great anticipation that I got to look at the much heralded "Savvio" line, which are the first 2.5-inch Enterprise drive on the market. The drive acts and works just like any other Ultra320 SCSI hard drive (even with 73GB capacity), but looks just like a laptop's hard drive with its 2.5-inch form factor.

description of technology

In data intensive environments, intelligent, high I/O-density servers and storage arrays, users are now about to gain IOPS performance and storage density. The result is increased business productivity, superior reliability and the flexibility to adapt to changing storage demands. That is what makes the Savvio 2.5" Enterprise Disk Drive such a valuable data storage unit. Its 73.4GB capacity coupled with 320MB/sec. transfer rates, 4.1 sec. average seek times and 8MB buffer, make it an ideal choice for situation servers and storage systems.

installation

Since the drive is really meant for a storage solution server and not my home PC, the unit was a little difficult to mount, but putting it inside the 3.5" drive bay worked just fine. Installing the hard drive (using an Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI PCI controller card) didn't take much time, as the BIOS found and identified the drive immediately. When in Windows XP, I right clicked on 'My Computer', went over to 'Manage', then clicked on 'Disk Management'. From there I was able to see the drive, reformat it, and activate it while assigning it a drive letter. Like any other hard drive, this one installed without issues or headaches.

specifications

The specs of the drive itself.

Some very impressive numbers to say the least. Obviously, reliability comes in the form of over a 1.4 million hours of expected run-time, and backed by a very comfortable 5 year warranty. The 8MB buffer size is nice as well.

test results

First we used the ancient but still widely used WinBench 99 to test out the drive, and also tested the results and compared them to the Seagate Cheetah drive we reviewed some months back...

As you can see the Savvio drive was in the ballpark of the standard Ultra320 SCSI drives almost across the board in all the tests.

Overall Impressions

If you're wondering why you should invest in the Savvio Ultra320 SCSI Hard Drive solution, it comes down to several things : 1) Dependability, 2) Performance, 3) Convenience. Obviously, this drive is a perfect match for IT directors looking to maximize the power of their servers that require a ton of storage capacity. Since these drives are so small, yet perform so well, it's possible to put many more than your traditional SCSI hard drive solution. This also means better airflow for the server, decreasing the amount of heat (and therefore risk to data), and increasing the amount of space in your IT room (less servers).

Since testing Ultra320 drives about a year ago, I've had one fail on me, and another underperform over the long haul. However, both Seagate drives I used before (and still now) have never had an issue and never crashed (unlike another drive I reviewed in the past). To me, reliability is the absolute #1 thing when it comes to a hard drive, and Seagate has a wonderful reputation when it comes to this feature. The drive performed very well, and makes so much more sense of small, medium, and even large businesses looking to increase the efficiency of their server storage solution.

The performance of the 73GB Savvio drive was pretty impressive considering the size of the device, and the value it brings to IT managers is considerable. The drive runs cheaper than the equivalent sized 15k.3 and the performance isn't too far off, making the price point extremely attractive. The usefulness is very significant since these drives offer up a much more efficient and safe solution for your storage server. The longevity of the Savvio drive, and Seagate drives from our historical perspective, is the best in the industry. Overall, the Savvio 73.5GB 2.5" Enterprise Ultra320 SCSI Hard Drive is a very impressive tool to improve the performance and efficiency of any server storage solution.

9 / 10 OVERALL SCORE 94% 10 / 10 9 / 10 9 / 10 10 / 10 9.4 / 10