Toshiba has announced that it has begun sampling of its new generation of SAS hard drives with a 10,500 RPM spindle speed. The new AL15SE HDDs are aimed at mission critical applications that still rely on traditional magnetic recording technology and have not yet migrated to SSDs. The key advantage of the new HDDs versus their predecessors are their increased capacity and performance.

The Toshiba AL15SE family of hard drives comes in traditional enterprise HDD form-factor of 2.5”/15 mm and includes models featuring Advanced Format (4K and 512e sectors) as well as SKUs with native 512B sectors. The AF hard drives can store 600 GB – 2400 GB of data (up from 1800 GB on the AL14SE), whereas the 512n hard disks have capacity of 300 GB – 1200 GB. The new drives are equipped with a 128 MB DRAM buffer as well as Toshiba’s persistent write cache with power loss protection (PWC with PLP). Select AL15SE models feature Sanitize Instant Erase (SIE) which encrypts and decrypts all data located on the drive and may delete the key when needed to quickly invalidate all recorded data. The SIE models take advantage of the persistent write cache with power loss protection.

 Toshiba AL15SE 10K 4Kn/512e HDDs
Capacity 2.4 TB 1.8 TB 1.2 TB 900 GB 600 GB
Standard Model 4Kn AL15SEB24EP AL15SEB18EP AL15SEB12EP AL15SEB09EP AL15SEB06EP
512e AL15SEB24EQ AL15SEB18EQ AL15SEB12EQ AL15SEB09EQ AL15SEB06EQ
SIE 4Kn AL15SEB24EPY AL15SEB18EPY AL15SEB12EPY AL15SEB09EPY AL15SEB06EPY
512e AL15SEB24EQY AL15SEB18EQY AL15SEB12EQY AL15SEB09EQY AL15SEB06EQY
DRAM Cache 128 MB DRAM
NAND Flash Cache Toshiba’s persistent write cache with power loss protection
Form-Factor, Interface 2.5", dual-port SAS 12 Gbps
Sustained Transfer Rate 260 MB/s
Average Latency 2.86 ms
Power Consumption Read/Write 8.7 W 8.1 W 7 W 6.5 W
Active Idle 5.1 W 4.6 W 3.5  W 3 W
Warranty 5 years
MTBF 2,000,000 hours

The new AL15SE drives are based on new platters with an increase in areal density. The new platters boost sustained data transfer speed of AL15SE AF HDDs over the prior AL14SE generation by 15% to 260 MB/s (outer diameter). The AL15SE 512n hard disks versions (while slower than their AF models at 225-234 MB/s), are also faster when compared to their predecessors. When it comes to latency, the drives feature a 2.86 ms average latency time, in line with previous-gen AL14SE products. Random performance of hard drives in general is typically very low and in case of 10K HDDs we are talking about ~200 IOPS. As for power consumption, the AL15SE consume 6.5-8.7 W, depending on SKU.

Toshiba AL15SE 10K 512n HDDs
Capacity 1.2 TB 900 GB 600 GB 300 GB
Standard Model AL15SEB120N AL15SEB090N AL15SEB060N AL15SEB030N
SIE AL15SEB120NY AL15SEB090NY AL15SEB060NY AL15SEB030NY
DRAM Cache 128 MB DRAM
Form-Factor,
Interface
2.5", dual-port SAS 12 Gbps
Sustained Transfer Rate 234 MB/s 222.5 MB/s
Average Latency 2.86 ms
Power Consumption Read/Write 8.1 W 7 W 6.5 W
Active Idle 4.5 W 3.5 W 3 W
Warranty 5 years
MTBF 2,000,000 hours

Earlier this year Toshiba announced what could be the final generation of its hard drives with a spindle speed of 15,000 RPM. However now it follows up with its new 10K HDDs. Neither 10K nor 15K hard disks deliver performance levels comparable to mission-critical SSDs, but there are still many applications that rely on mechanical drives (especially if you run something old, which still uses 512B and similar sectors). Toshiba says that 10K and 15K HDDs are sold with a huge premium and even despite of decreasing unit shipments they still control around 10% of the global hard drive revenue share, which is why both Seagate and Toshiba refreshed their new 10K/15K product families in the recent 18 months.

Toshiba did not say when it plans to start commercial shipments of the new drives, but since we are dealing with HDDs aimed at mission critical applications, neither the manufacturer nor its clients would rush deployment. Prices of the drives will depend on volumes and negotiations.

Related Reading

Source: Toshiba

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  • vidal6x6 - Friday, January 5, 2018 - link

    Agree With ddriver. anand and toms have some biased sh1% about intel :) no one make DPC test latency.
  • Samus - Thursday, January 25, 2018 - link

    You think Toshiba enterprise drives are bad...have you had any experience with their e-Studio's? Man those things are total SHIT. They actually get less reliable as you get higher end machines. The entry level 2500AC's are basically bulletproof, but really underpowered for a "copyroom" machine for a large office. So those poor people usually get fucked with a 6500 series, and I can't tell you how many control board, feeders and imaging belts I've replaced on 6540's. The shitbox of Japan. Get a Canon.
  • vidal6x6 - Friday, January 5, 2018 - link

    Try to google that intel report. you find alot of same 3hit on internet. intel burning money to not get hurt! but this problem is almost 10 years. and now who got a old 1155 plataform will be need to upgrade because the cpu WILL have a BIG HIT in performance. ALL people who need to upgrade from this intel Scam, get an AMD system. MACFEE WILL BE SMILE!

    IF you don't belive https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-to-...

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