Is this the enterprise drive that holds RDRT's first enterprise head?
Regards,
Mark
Western Digital Announces One of the Industry's First Low-Profile 18.3 GB Ultra2 SCSI Hard Drives
BusinessWire, Monday, November 02, 1998 at 08:20
ROCHESTER, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 2, 1998--
Features
Advanced Data Protection Technologies for Enterprise-Class Systems;
Performance-Rich WD Enterprise Models Extend Ultra2 SCSI Offerings
Western Digital Corp. (NYSE:WDC) Monday announced one of the
industry's first low-profile 18.3 GB, 3.5-inch 7,200 RPM Ultra2 SCSI
LVD (low-voltage differential) hard drives designed for enterprise
computing platforms.
The new WD Enterprise hard drive is an extension of the WD
Enterprise Ultra2 SCSI high performance family and includes 8 new
models in the 18.3 GB and 9.1 GB capacity points. Evaluation samples
have shipped as early as July to major OEM customers. Manufacturing
will begin in December, with general availability in January.
"Bringing to market one of the industry's high capacity
low-profile 18.3 GB Ultra2 SCSI hard drives reaffirms our commitment
to our enterprise storage customers," said W. Michael Williams, senior
vice president and general manager of Western Digital's Enterprise
Storage Group. "The new WD Enterprise hard drives represent our keen
understanding of what matters most to enterprise-class customers --
performance-rich, time-to-market hard drives with advanced data
protection to reliably manage increasingly complex data, provided by a
leading and reliable storage supplier."
"In less than two years, Western Digital has secured a 7 percent
market share in the traditional enterprise portion of the HDD
marketplace," said Crawford Del Prete, vice president of IDC's Storage
Research Program. "The new 18 GB low-profile drive builds on the
company's momentum, and will target the enterprise market sweet spot
in 1999."
Advanced Data Protection Assures Data Integrity
To protect mission critical data on enterprise-class systems,
Western Digital is committed to minimizing costly system downtime by
finding ways to monitor and control the operation of the hard drive.
"The advanced data protection features implemented in the WD
Enterprise 18.3 GB and 9.1 GB Ultra2 SCSI hard drives enable easier
storage management, maximizing data integrity in both read and write
operations -- an industry-first for Western Digital," said Brian Nass,
vice president of marketing for Western Digital's Enterprise Storage
Group.
Focusing on data recovery, failure prediction and failure
prevention, these advanced data protection features include enhanced
error correction (ECC) which does not detract from the hard drive's
performance, S.M.A.R.T. which notifies the host of changing
conditions, and Western Digital's exclusive Data Lifeguard(TM) which
automatically identifies, isolates and repairs problem areas that may
develop over an extended period of time.
Additionally, the thermal monitor evaluates the temperature of
the drive, provides pertinent information to the host, and optimizes
drive operations to sustain the temperatures at an acceptable level.
To provide greater reliability and improved error rates, the
patent-pending fly height monitor protects the write operations by
detecting when a recording head is flying outside of its normal
operating range. Once this has been detected, the hard drive ensures
that the information has been written correctly by either rewriting
the data or reallocating that data.
Powerful Performance for Intelligent Storage Solutions
Designed for workstation, server and RAID applications, the new
generation WD Enterprise hard drives introduce a powerful,
performance-driven Ultra2 SCSI design which offers high data
availability ideal for intelligent storage solutions in enterprise
computing platforms. "In I/O intensive applications where performance
is a top priority, the WD Enterprise 18.3 GB hard drive outperforms
all current 18 GB Ultra2 7,200 RPM half-height (1.6-inch) drives on
the market today and is competitive with the fastest 10K RPM drives
now available in production," said Nass.
The WD Enterprise hard drives are used in a variety of
applications including e-commerce, AV/video-editing, scientific
computing, CAD/CAM, database management, data warehousing/data mining,
as well as enterprise resource planning (ERP) application serving.
To enhance system performance, the new WD Enterprise Ultra2 SCSI
hard drives implement advanced I/O features such as adaptive caching,
command reordering and Western Digital's proprietary Command Queuing
Engine(TM) which increases the performance in a queued environment by
eliminating firmware intervention. Maximum systems throughput is
fueled by an Ultra2 SCSI interface that supports host data transfer
rates of up to 80 MB/s and exceptional bus utilization. To protect the
customer's existing technology investment, this Ultra2 SCSI interface
allows the drive to automatically switch between Ultra SCSI and Ultra2
SCSI by adapting to the current bus mode (single-ended or LVD) of
operation. The drives have an average seek time of 6.9 milliseconds
and up to a 246 Mb/s internal data transfer rate.
For audio/video applications, Western Digital offers AV-optimized
models which are designed to maintain a sustained data rate of 12 to
20 MB/s to provide seamless data flow. This is achieved by a 4 MB
multi-segmented cache buffer, advanced data logging, embedded servo
technology, and custom firmware to ensure accurate and timely delivery
of data.
WD Enterprise Ultra2 SCSI Models and Availability
The new WD Enterprise Ultra2 SCSI hard drives extend the Ultra2
product family to include 8 new models consisting of 18.3 GB and 9.1
GB capacity points with either a 68-pin or 80-pin connector and a 2 MB
cache. The AV-optimized models are available in both capacities with a
4 MB cache. The products will be certified to run Microsoft Windows
95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Sun Solaris
operating systems.
The WD Enterprise Ultra2 SCSI hard drives will be available in
January in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia-Pacific through Western
Digital's distributors. A listing of WD distributors can be found on
the company's Web site at
wdc.com.
Western Digital Corp. is a leader in information storage
products and services. The company designs and manufactures hard
drives for personal and enterprise-wide computing, and markets them to
leading systems manufacturers and selected resellers under the Western
Digital brand name. Western Digital is the first Fortune 500,
multinational company to have been awarded company-wide ISO 9001
registration, linking all WD organizations with a consistent global
standard for quality processes. The company was founded in 1970 and
has long been noted for its storage and end-market systems-level
design knowledge. The company's home page can be found at
westerndigital.com.
Western Digital is a registered trademark and WD Enterprise,
Command Queuing Engine and Data Lifeguard are trademarks of Western
Digital Corporation. All other brand and product names mentioned
herein are the property of their respective companies.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Product photography is available at
westerndigital.com.
CONTACT: Western Digital Corporation
Valinda Accetta, 949/932-5178
valinda.m.accetta@wdc.com
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