Performance Enterprise

Hard drive manufacturers design drives that will perform well for their largest customers, or sets of customers.  This is why “classes” of drives exist.

Design Expectations:

The information below is a high-level set of expectations the drive manufacturers have when designing, testing and selling “Performance Enterprise” drives.

  • Power On Hours
  • Write / Read Ratio
  • Block Sizes
  • Seek Profile
  • Performance Enterprise
  • 24 hrs/7 days (8760 POH)
  • 60/40
  • Random
  • RAID Striped w/Parity

Design Details:

The “Performance Enterprise” class of drives represent the manufacturers offerings where throughput, I/O (input/output) performance and reliability are the highest possible given a volume production and pricing business model.  Performance Enterprise drives using traditional HDD technology are either 10K or 15K rpm spin rate, SAS interface, and under 2TB in capacity (with most models being under 1TB).  Hybrid HDD / SSD technology has also been introduced in this class, and a growing part of the market is incorporating enterprise solid state drives (SSD).  In addition to the snapshot of features below, Performance Enterprise class drives feature very robust componentry throughout their design.

The table below is an excerpt from the HDSTOR Drive Comparison Table, which shows features (or lack thereof) of the different classes of drives, as well as relative performance, reliability and cost.

  • Production Screening?
  • Rated for 24/7 Use?
  • Fixed Shaft Spindle?
  • RV Feed Forward Sensors?
  • Time Limited Retry Tables?
  • Performance Enterprise
  • YES
  • YES
  • YES
  • YES
  • YES
  • Workload Rating
  • Firmware Tuning
  • Performance Capabilities
  • Reliability Ratings
  • Cost
  • Performance Enterprise
  • EXTREME
  • Random Access/ RAID
  • VERY HIGH
  • VERY HIGH
  • VERY HIGH