Western Digital this week started to ship its third-generation hard disk drives for mission-critical applications with Serial Attached SCSI interface and 10K rpm spindle speed. The new drives boost performance compared to previously available offerings, but, more importantly, they also increase capacity to up to 900GB.

"Continuing our commitment to the industry's fastest-growing segment - 2.5" drives - WD is updating our small form factor SAS offering with the advanced technology of our third-generation drive, including a new 900 GB capacity point," said Darwin Kauffman, vice president of enterprise storage solutions at WD.

The new WD S25 hard disk drives with 10 000rpm spindle speed, SAS 6Gb/s interface and 32MB cache, are available in 300GB, 450GB, 600GB and 900GB capacities thanks to new generation platters. WD declares 204MB/s buffer to disc transfer rate and 7.8W read/write power consumption. The WD S25 line is designed for the most demanding applications such as online transaction processing and multi-tiered networked storage arrays.

WD's third-generation of 2.5" SAS drives are also its first to include support for T10 protection onformation (PI) for advanced data integrity, and the first to provide optional models that feature drive-level self-encryption that meets the Trusted Computing Group's specification for enterprise class A encryption.

WD S25 SAS hard drives are currently shipping to OEMs, with broader availability at select resellers and distributors worldwide later next quarter. WD S25 SAS hard drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty.

"Our latest generation of WD S25 SAS drives offer a powerful combination of enterprise-class performance and industry-leading reliability that is ideal for demanding high-performance computing and mission-critical environments. WD is also delivering higher capacity offerings and the power efficiency of the small form factor footprint, providing the most efficient storage solution for IT professionals and enabling lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)," added Mr. Kauffman.

Tags: WD, Western Digital, HDD, 10K, SAS