Conclusion
With the Serial Attached SCSI version of the Constellation ES.3 series, Seagate has once again shown why they are the OEM of choice for many corporations. These new drives not only pack an amazing amount of capacity into the typical 3.5” form factor –allowing for fewer drives needed to fulfill a given set of storage requirements – but succeed in delivering speeds which aren’t normally associated with 7200 RPM SAS drives.
A lot of the performance potential comes from the fact that Seagate has designed these drives with 128MB of onboard cache which is placed alongside heavily tweaked the firmware. These two factors allow the Constellation take full advantage of its 4TB of space. Usually an increase in cache amount doesn’t necessarily equate noticeable real world throughput increases, but in this case it allows these drives to thrive in RAID environments. For enterprise customers, this is a key metric since it will allow them to reach critical mass from a capacity standpoint while also achieving their performance goals.
This combination of highly refined firmware and massive onboard cache may not make for the fastest SAS drives available – remember, the Constellation series is still made up of 7200 RPM products- but the excellent capacity, great performance, longevity and adaptability results in a perfect solution for small, medium and even large storage arrays.
The only possible criticism we have with the SAS version of the Constellation ES.3 is its price. At $420 for the 4TB version, there may be prodigious amounts of storage space on tap but you’ll pay a dear price for the highest capacity currently available. If price per unit is a primary concern, then other products may be a better fit.
The ES.3 line is built to typical Seagate enterprise quality standards, boasts a 5 year warranty and is meant for 24/7/365 usage scenarios, meaning Seagate’s premium is fully justified. In addition, although it may be expensive on a single drive basis, the Constellation isn’t meant to be purchased or used in ‘one of’ scenarios. As we mentioned before, the primary focus here is to deliver a hard drive which is tailor made for RAID environments, a segment where less of these drives will be needed to hit a target storage capacity. With this in mind, the seemingly sky high price suddenly becomes much more favourable. Fewer drives, means less potential problems and a reduced number of resources will be needed. This in turn leads to a lower Total Cost of Ownership, which is even more important to business consumers than just price per unit cost.
While their price may ultimately drive away home and SOHO users, Seagate’s new Constellation ES.3 4TB is currently one of the best hard drives currently available for the enterprise market. It incorporates a dizzying number of features to ensure optimal performance in multi drive arrays, ensures data remains secure and ultimately delivers a good dollar per TB ratio regardless of a high overall price.
Conclusion
With the Serial Attached SCSI version of the Constellation ES.3 series, Seagate has once again shown why they are the OEM of choice for many corporations. These new drives not only pack an amazing amount of capacity into the typical 3.5” form factor –allowing for fewer drives needed to fulfill a given set of storage requirements – but succeed in delivering speeds which aren’t normally associated with 7200 RPM SAS drives.
A lot of the performance potential comes from the fact that Seagate has designed these drives with 128MB of onboard cache which is placed alongside heavily tweaked the firmware. These two factors allow the Constellation take full advantage of its 4TB of space. Usually an increase in cache amount doesn’t necessarily equate noticeable real world throughput increases, but in this case it allows these drives to thrive in RAID environments. For enterprise customers, this is a key metric since it will allow them to reach critical mass from a capacity standpoint while also achieving their performance goals.
This combination of highly refined firmware and massive onboard cache may not make for the fastest SAS drives available – remember, the Constellation series is still made up of 7200 RPM products- but the excellent capacity, great performance, longevity and adaptability results in a perfect solution for small, medium and even large storage arrays.
The only possible criticism we have with the SAS version of the Constellation ES.3 is its price. At $420 for the 4TB version, there may be prodigious amounts of storage space on tap but you’ll pay a dear price for the highest capacity currently available. If price per unit is a primary concern, then other products may be a better fit.
The ES.3 line is built to typical Seagate enterprise quality standards, boasts a 5 year warranty and is meant for 24/7/365 usage scenarios, meaning Seagate’s premium is fully justified. In addition, although it may be expensive on a single drive basis, the Constellation isn’t meant to be purchased or used in ‘one of’ scenarios. As we mentioned before, the primary focus here is to deliver a hard drive which is tailor made for RAID environments, a segment where less of these drives will be needed to hit a target storage capacity. With this in mind, the seemingly sky high price suddenly becomes much more favourable. Fewer drives, means less potential problems and a reduced number of resources will be needed. This in turn leads to a lower Total Cost of Ownership, which is even more important to business consumers than just price per unit cost.
While their price may ultimately drive away home and SOHO users, Seagate’s new Constellation ES.3 4TB is currently one of the best hard drives currently available for the enterprise market. It incorporates a dizzying number of features to ensure optimal performance in multi drive arrays, ensures data remains secure and ultimately delivers a good dollar per TB ratio regardless of a high overall price.
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