Seagate 146 GB SAS Hard Drive

We have reviewed SCSI and SATA drives in the past that were

meant for high-end data storage, and promised to do wonders for both online and

near-line storage for mission-critical data. However, we have never

covered an SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drive so far. This

time we set the records right with this Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 drive that offers

146 GB storage at potentially incredible speeds. We cannot directly compare this

drive either with SCSI or SATA2 drives because SAS is a different technology

branch. The test bed comprised a Dual Xeon IBM eServer using the four-port LSI

logic SAS card that came with the review unit. For the High End Winmark and the

Business Disk Winmark tests we got a data rate of 41 Mbps and 11.6 Mbps

respectively. The disk transfer rate was also an eye—catching 93.3 Mbps in the

beginning and 56.9 Mbps in the end. Readers would note that the comparable top

rate of an SCSI drive (another Seagate

Price: Rs 44,100 (5 yrs warranty)

Key Specs: SAS, 146 GB capacity, 8 MB buffer, 15000 rpm

Contact: eSys Distribution, Delhi. Tel: 51811694. E-mail: naresh@esysmail.com

RQS# E58 or SMS 130458 to 9811800601

Cheetah 15K.4 that we reviewed in March 2005) was a mere

37.8 Mbps. The CPU utilization was 68.5 %. Average disk access time stood at

6.32 ms (rated 3.5 ms), which is bit more than the 5.8 ms scored by the SCSI

drive last year.

Bottom Line: While the figures may seem mind-blowing,

it's worth mentioning that SAS promises a 3 Gbps throughput and its nearly 100

Mbps rate is well above the 70 Mbps that SATA2 gives compared to its similar 3

Gbps one, we do not have comparable scores of SAS drives at hand to provide a

fair assessment of this drive. The price of this particular model has dropped by

Rs 30K since January 2006. So  expect further price drop in times to come.

Abe Kurian