IBM Announces Four New Server Hard Disk Drives Including The Fastest Drive Shipping Today
Business Wire - October 30, 1997 09:20
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 30, 1997--IBM today announced it is shipping four new server hard disk drives, including the world's fastest drive available today.
The 9.1-gigabyte Ultrastar 9ZX, IBM's first 10,000 RPM drive, has the fastest seek time of any hard disk drive shipping today. Seek time is how fast users can find information stored on their hard drives.
IBM also today announced a statement of direction for its server drive family. By mid-1998, IBM plans to introduce additional 10,000 RPM drives, including a higher capacity follow-on, 10,000 RPM drive a well as a thinner or "low profile: version of its new 9.1GB Ultrastar 9ZX.
In addition to the 9.1GB Ultrastar 9ZX, IBM also today announced the 18.2-gigabyte Ultrastar 18XP, 9.1 gigabyte Ultrastar 9LP and 9.1-gigabyte Ultrastar 9ES drives. These drives are used in a range of systems from PCs, workstations and PC servers to enterprise servers.
IBM's new drives are designed to handle the most demanding, mission-critical applications for large corporate intranets and Internets, servers supporting on-line banking and credit card transaction processing, as well as data mining.
All of the new drives feature advanced hard disk drive technology including IBM's MRX (Magnetoresistive Extended) head technology. The MRX head technology component sends out stronger signals than the previous generation head, meaning it allows the drive to store more bits per square inch on a part of the disk drive called the platter.
When more bits are stored in a square inch, generally there are fewer parts. With fewer parts, there is higher performance and reliability. IBM's high-capacity hard drives rated number one in reliability, according to a recent independent reseller survey.
In addition, Ultrastar 9ZX, Ultrastar 18XP, and 9LP feature an industry-first self-monitoring system called Drive Temperature Indicator Processor (Drive-TIP) that is designed to give users advance warning of any changes in temperature that may cause the server to malfunction. When a server is down, one study shows it could cost a company as much as $6 million per hour in lost productivity.
IBM's Drive-TIP can allow administrators to make the necessary adjustments to maintain the proper system temperature, so users can have less interruption to data access, which can mean increased productivity.
In addition, all of these new products are the most rugged server drives in the world(a). When a drive is more rugged it is less likely to be damaged while it is being handled or installed into a server.
High-Capacity, High-Speed Interface Solutions
The 18.2-gigabyte 7200 RPM Ultrastar 18XP drive and 9.1-gigabyte Ultrastar 9LP, are designed for departmental and enterprise servers, midrange servers, RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) subsystems and video servers. Additional applications for systems with these drives include data warehousing, document image processing and digital audio and video.
With Ultrastar 9ZX, 9LP and 18XP, IBM has the most comprehensive choice of high-speed interfaces including Ultra SCSI, Ultra2 SCSI, Serial Storage Architecture and Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop. A fast interface allows information to transfer more quickly, a major advantage for server users. More choices mean system integrators can choose the interface that suits their needs.
Performance PCs, Workstations and PC Servers
IBM's 9.1 gigabyte Ultrastar 9ES is designed for the performance PC, workstation, and PC server users. Additional applications for this product include multimedia, CAD/CAM, digital content creation, desktop publishing, and 3-D imaging. The drive is high performance, quiet, uses low power, and provides customers with ease of integration and low cost of ownership.
According to IDC, IBM's Ultrastar ES product family has been very successful in the low end of the high end hard disk drive marketplace over the past two years.
"Driven by the huge popularity of the Internet, e-mail systems and other network computing-related applications, the demand for server disk drives is large and growing rapidly," said Dr. Mike Workman, vice president of development, IBM Storage Systems Division.
"We are now delivering a complete portfolio of server class drives with tailored features and functions for nearly every segment of this market. With our advanced technology and continuing focus on lowering the total cost of ownership, customer feedback has been very positive," added Dr. Workman.
Ultrastar Customers
These new drives are all either shipping to or being evaluated now by more than 20 distributors and customers worldwide, including AST Computer; CLARiiON, a Data General company; Hewlett-Packard Company; IBM; Silicon Graphics, Inc.; and Tandem, a Compaq company.
IBM's new drives will be used in CLARiiON storage disk array products. According to Larry Hemmerich, vice president and general manager of CLARiiON, "CLARiiON is committed to being the first to deliver leading technologies to the marketplace. Our choice to integrate the IBM 18-gigabyte Ultrastar disk drives into our products reinforces this commitment, as they deliver the highest levels of reliability, performance and capacity available today."
All of these drives will be on display at Bally's Hotel and Casino during Fall COMDEX, November 17-21, in Las Vegas, Nev.
For more information about IBM hard disk drives, call 1-800-IBM-7777, and press Dept. Star 30 or access IBM's Web page at ibm.com .
SPECIFICATIONS
New IBM Hard Disk Drives for Servers
Ultrastar 9ZX
9.1GB, 3.5-inch, 10,020 RPM, 2.99 ms average latency, 6.3 ms
average read seek time, 6 disk platters, MRX head technology, 1.13
Gbits/square inch areal density, up to 205Mb/sec media data rate, 1
MB buffer size, 5th generation PRML channel, Predictive Failure
Analysis (PFA) Drive-Temperature Indicator Processor (Drive-TIP), 140
G (2 msec)(a) non-operational shock rating, Ultra SCSI and
Ultra2-SCSI, SSA and FCAL interfaces.
Volume Production dates:
Ultrastar 9ZX-Ultra-Shipping now
Ultrastar 9ZX-Ultra2 SCSI Q1 1998
Ultrastar 9ZX-SSA and FC-AL-Q2 1998
Ultrastar 18XP
18.2GB, 3.5-inch, 7200 RPM, 4.17 ms average latency, 7.5ms average
seek time, 10 disk platters, MRX head technology, 1.25 Gbits/square
inch areal density, up to 179Mb/sec media data rate. 1 MB buffer
size, 5th generation PRML channel, Predictive Failure Analysis
(PFA), Drive-Temperature Indicator Processor (Drive-TIP), 140 G (2
msec)(a) non-operational shock rating, Ultra SCSI and Ultra2-SCSI, SSA
and FCAL interfaces.
Volume Production dates:
Ultrastar 18XP-Ultra SCSI-Shipping now
Ultrastar 18XP-Ultra2 SCSI-Q1 1998
Ultrastar 18XP-SSA and FC-AL-Q2 1998
Ultrastar 9LP
9.1GB, 3.5-inch, 7200 RPM, 4.17 ms average latency, 6.5ms average seek
time, 5 disk platters, MRX head technology. 1.25 Gbits/square inch
areal density, up to 179Mb/sec media data rate, 1 MB buffer size,
5th generation PRML channel, Predictive Failure Analysis (PFA)
Drive-Temperature Indicator Processor (Drive-TIP), 140 G (2msec)(a)
non-operational shock rating, UltraSCSI and Ultra2-SCSI, SSA and FCAL
interfaces.
Volume Production dates:
Ultrastar 9LP-Ultra SCSI-Shipping now
Ultrastar 9LP-Ultra2 SCSI-Q1 1998
Ultrastar 9LP-SSA and FC-AL-Q2 1998
New IBM Hard Disk Drive for PCs, Workstations, PC Severs
Ultrastar 9ES
9.1GB & 4.5GB, 7200 RPM, 4.17 ms average latency, 7.5 ms average read
seek time, 5 and 3 disk platters, MRX head technology, 1.6
Gbits/square inch areal density, up to 171 Mbits/sec media transfer
rate, 512 KB buffer, quiet acoustics, low power dissipation,
P.R.M.L. data channel, 175 g (2 msec)(a) non-operational shock rating,
Ultra SCSI and Ultra2 SCSI.
Volume Production dates:
Ultrastar 9ES-Ultra SCSI-Shipping now
Ultrastar 9ES-Ultra2 SCSI-Q1 1998
All of IBM's new drives feature Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) digital channels, Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T) and No-ID Sector Formatting.
(a) Based on non-operational shock rating.
Note to Editors:
No-ID Drive-TIP, Predictive failure Analysis and IBM are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. |
