Seagate offers multiple drive lines targeted to both consumer and enterprise implementations. Among the drives aimed at enterprise uses (including NAS, SAN, nearline storage, etc., depending on model) are the Cheetah, Savvio, SV35, and Barracuda ES families (a separate branch of the Barracuda family, the Barracuda 7200s, is targeted to desktop implementations). All are available separately.

A sampling of high end drive offerings in each of the product families include:

- The Cheetah 15K.6 drives boast a 15,000 RPM platter speed and are offered with SAS or Fibre Channel interfaces. Offered capacities for this 3.5 inch drive are 146, 300, and 450 GB; and sustained transfer rates range up to 164 MB/sec. The Cheetah 15K.6 is also offered in an FDE (Full Disk Encryption) flavor "... only to major OEM suppliers." Other enterprise drives in the Cheetah line as of this writing include the Cheetah NS series (optimized for capacity and power consumption, also FC and SAS) and the olders Cheetah 15K.5s.

- The Savvio 10K.2 drives are smaller (2.5 inch) drives targeted primarily to rack/blade server deployments. The 10,000 RPM drives are offered in 73 and 146 GB capacities (3 Gb/sec SAS) and feature an average read/write seek time of 3.8/4.4 milliseconds, and a sustained transfer rate of 55 to 89 MB/sec (inner to outer diameters).

- The Savvio 10k.3 drives are also 10,000 drives offered in capacities of 146 and 300 GB. The 10.K.3 drives boast a SAS 2.0 interface capable of interface communication rates of up to 6 Gb/sec. As in the Cheetah 15K.6, an FDE version is available through select OEMs.

- New in the Savvio family is the 15K.2, which builds on the 15K with the introduction of a SAS 2.0 (6 Gb/sec) interface. An FDE version of this one is also available, boasting AES encryption of data. The 15K.2 is expected to be offered in capacities of 73 and 146 GB.

- The SV35 drives are optimized for and targeted specifically to digital media environments, offered in capacities ranging from 250 GB to 1 TB in SATA and ATA/100 form factors (depending on drive). The SV35s boast ATA-7 streaming commands support and caches of up to 32 MB.

- The Barracuda ES and ES.2 drives are 7200 RPM drives that boast the vendor's perpendicular recording technology, boosting potential capacity to up to 1 TB. The Barracuda ES drives are offered with SATA interfaces, while the ES.2 offerings ship with either SAS or SATA interfaces. ES drives ship in multiple capacities of from 250 GB to 750 GB, while the ES.2 is offered in capacities of 500 GB, 750 GB, or 1 TB.

ES features include an average read/write seek time of 8.5/9.5 milliseconds, an 8 or 16 MB cache, and sustained transfer rates of 72 or 78 (SATA 750GB) MB/sec. The ES.2 delivers an identical read/write seek time, but increases the cache to 16 or 32 MB and the sustained maximum transfer rate to 105 MB/sec.

The drives are available now, with the exception of the Savvio 15K.2 and Savvio 10K.3, both of which are expected to debut in December (the FDE versions are due 1Q/2009).

Contact Seagate for further information.