IBM "Pixie Dust" Drives "Shipping In Volume"

[Bozo Galora]

Way out from left field, just when you think they are out of it, they put out a new drive:

Quote:


BIG BLUE HASN'T got out of the hard drive business quite yet.

The firm said that it has released the Ultrastar 146Z10 and the product is available in volume.

It spins around at 10,000 revs a minute, and includes some antivibration technology called rotational vibration safeguard as well as having eight MB of cache.

According to Big Blue France, the drive is the first product to include its antiferromagnetic technology ? Tinkerbell as we call it ? while IBM calls it "pixie dust".

Tinkerbell gives temperature and data stability and IBM said the drive has been tested to pieces for extra stability.

It calls the drive a "trusted workhorse" ? yes, it's that Dobbin word again, twice in one day.

Big Blue claims the drive gives a 15 per cent boost to sustained data throughput as well as a 10 per cent improvement in Winbench metrics over previous drives.

The drive is also available in 18GB, 36GB, 73GB and 146GB lots, the firm said.
================

I assume its SCSI (10K)




link

 

[LostHiWay]

Looks pretty good. I just wish they had it in IDE

 

[Paulson]

Damn, I thought it was an IDE hard drive too...

would have been sweet!

 

[Bozo Galora]

Technical Specifications
Ultrastar 146Z10
146/73/36/18 GB*
780 grams (max)
10,000 RPM
3 ms average latency
825 Mbps max media transfer rate
26.3 billion bits per square inch maximum areal density
6/3/2/1 glass disk platter(s)
12/6/3/2 GMR recording head(s)
225 Gs (1ms) nonoperating shock, 45 Gs (2 ms) operating shock
4.7 ms average seek time
25.4 mm (+/-0.4)
3.7 Bels typical idle acoustics
4.5 Bels typical operating acoustics
8 MB buffer
Power: 10.2 watts (idle), 16.0 (max)
Ultra320 SCSI compatible; backward compatible to Ultra160 SCSI
2Gb Fibre Channel compatible; backward compatible to 1Gb

 

[GoodRevrnd]

10k rpm 146GB SCSI drive.... I feel faint.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
Technical Specifications

825 Mbps max media transfer rate

If true, I think this would be the first drive ever to exceed ATA100 bandwidth. In fact with that combined with the 8MB cache, it may at times be limited by your SCSI card being in a PCI slot. With RAID it would definately be limited by the PCI bus.

 

[pac1085]

Wow 146gb 10kscsi....time to upgrade!

 

[glugglug]

One thing to keep in mind:

Whenever there is a technology tradeoff between performance and reliability, reliability is always the MUCH higher priced of the two.

This drive sounds like it has an emphasis on reliability AND incredible performance.

I guarantee you the price tag has at least 4 digits, quite possibly 5.

 

[Pariah]

Quote

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Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
Technical Specifications

825 Mbps max media transfer rate

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If true, I think this would be the first drive ever to exceed ATA100 bandwidth.

Media transfer rate is another term for ITR (internal transfer rate), which is a pretty much useless stat that doesn't mirror any real world scenarios. Max STR will be considerably lower.

"I guarantee you the price tag has at least 4 digits, quite possibly 5."

There is less than zero chance any of these drives will hit 5 digits. The only model that will hit 4 is the 146GB version. Seagate's 6th generation Cheetah will be released at an MSRP of $1259 for the 146GB version, $699 for the 73GB and $389 for the 36GB. IBM should be in the same range.

 

[teddymines]

I hope IBM has found a pixie dust that works better than the stuff they used on the 60gxp. I would be peeved if I bought one of these and it failed in under a year.

 

[sharkeeper]

Just wait until these start failing like the 75 and 60 (and now 120) GXP series! Problem is they are going to be in servers! :Q

Cheers!

 

[WarmAndSCSI]

Nice! I wish they had an IDE model though....

 

[GoSharks]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper
Just wait until these start failing like the 75 and 60 (and now 120) GXP series!

ibm's ide division is/was totally separate from the scsi division...

 

[MrGrim]

AHAHAHAHAHA another IBM AHAHAHAH hard drive AHAHAHAHAH help me AHAHAHAHA

 

[Bozo Galora]

(But on their site it says "Rock Solid" in bold letters - are you saying you dont believe them?)

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora


(But on their site it says "Rock Solid" in bold letters - are you saying you dont believe them?)

Their SCSI division has been nothing but that. IBM is not going to release an enterprise drive that they use in their own servers with a 5 year warranty that is plagued with the same problems as the GXP series. It's not going to happen.