The European Seagate headquarters announced two new hard disk drives from the Cheetah family intended for corporate data storage systems. They are Cheetah 15K.3 (the third generation Cheetah drive with 15,000rpm spindle rotation speed) and low-profile Cheetah 10K.6 with 10, 000rpm spindle rotation speed.

Here are some brief specs of the newcomers:

• Cheetah 15K.3. 15,000rpm, 18GB platters, the available capacities in the family are 73GB, 36GB and 18GB, average latency - 2msec, average seek time – 3.6msec, internal transfer rate – 609-891Mbit/sec, external transfer rate – 49-75Mbit/sec, acoustics (idle) – 3.5Bels/3.2Bels/3.1Bels, idle power – 12W/10W/9W, number of platters - 4/2/1, number of GMR heads – 8/4/1, Ultra320 SCSI interface and 2GB/sec Fibre Channel.
• Cheetah 10K.6. 10,000rpm, 18GB platters, the available capacities in the family are 146GB, 73GB, 36GB, average latency – 2.9msec, average seek time – 4.7msec, internal transfer rate – 475-871Mbit/sec, external transfer rate – 38-68.5Mbit/sec, acoustics (idle) – 3.4Bels, idle power – 10.8W, number of platters - 4/2/1, number of GMR heads – 8/4/2, Ultra320 SCSI interface and 2GB/sec Fibre Channel.

At present Seagate is shipping samples to selected customers and the mass production of new Cheetah 15K.3 and Cheetah 10K.6 is about to start in Q3 2002.

The recommended retail pricing looks as follows:

• Cheetah 15K.3
  • ST373453LC/LW/FC (73GB) - $939;
  • ST336753LC/LW/FC (36GB) - $519;
  • ST318453LC/LW/FC (18GB) - $289.
• Cheetah 10K.6
  • ST3146807LC/LW/FC (146GB) - $1259;
  • ST373307LC/LW/FC (73GB) - $699;
  • ST336607LC/LW/FC (36GB) - $389.