HP looks to use 2.5-in. drives in servers, arrays

Lucas Mearian   Today’s Top Stories    or  Other Servers Stories  

Blades: fast growing and incompatible Data Center Transformation: Simplify data center build outs, consolidations and acquisitions with IT infrastructure management solutions Give Me Break More Power to You: Improving uptime and capacity planning through rack-level power and environmental monitoring Learn-Fast Guide: Get Up to Speed on Green IT Sign up to receive Security Resource Alerts

December 16, 2003 (Computerworld) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to start shipping 2.5-in. disk drives with enterprise-class features in its ProLiant servers next year and later will add the space-saving technology to its disk subsystems and arrays.

Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc. yesterday announced that HP has started testing its 2.5-in. drives, which use the Serial Attached SCSI interconnect and support data transfer rates of up to 300MB/sec. In addition, Seagate Technology LLC said it will deliver 2.5-in. drives to HP and other vendors during the first half of 2004.

HP will be able to put three of the new drives in the same amount of space that's now occupied by one 3.5-in. model, said Jeff Jenkins, the company's vice president of server storage and infrastructure. That should let HP increase storage capacity and data throughput in servers, disk arrays and other non-PC devices while reducing the size of the boxes, he said.

The 2.5-in. technology is expected to debut in the ProLiant line in the second half of 2004, according to Jenkins. HP then plans to roll out multiple-disk enclosures and modular arrays using the smaller drives in 2005 and 2006, respectively, he said.

Dave Reinsel, an analyst at market research firm IDC, said HP is the most aggressive adopter of 2.5-in. drives among makers of enterprise servers and storage devices. Reinsel said hardware vendors could reduce by two-thirds the space required for disk drives in blade servers or rack-mounted systems by switching to 2.5-in. units.

The support for Serial Attached SCSI is another potential advantage of the Fujitsu drives HP is testing. The serial SCSI standard uses a point-to-point connection for each drive in an array. That's designed to be more scalable than the master/slave architecture employed by the parallel SCSI technology that's prevalent now, Reinsel said. With parallel interfaces, a single controller must be shared by all the drives on a bus.

The 2.5-in. drives that HP plans to use also can be mixed with lower-cost Serial Advanced Technology Attachment drives inside storage systems, said Mike Chenery, vice president of advanced engineering at Fujitsu Computer Products in San Jose. Combining the two kinds of drives would enable users to do backups of their transactional data within the same box.

"Instead of one drive, you can put in two or three drives and enable RAID functionality in a 1U- or 2U-high server, which would be impossible with a 3.5-in. drive due to the heat and cooling requirements of these new microprocessors," Chenery said. (A U is a unit of measurement for server racks; 1U has a height of 1.75 in.)

The 2.5-in. drives are hot-swappable and have dual ports for redundancy, and they initially will be sold in 36GB and 73GB models, Chenery added.

However, 2.5-in. drives have a long way to go to overtake their 3.5-in. SCSI counterparts as the top storage technology for corporate servers and disk subsystems. Reinsel said 3.5-in. SCSI drives currently account for 78% of the enterprise-class disk drive market, with the remainder taken by Fibre Channel technology. He predicted that 2.5-in. serial SCSI drives should grab about 2% of the market next year, with that share growing to 10% by 2006.

"The advantage of 2.5-in. drives most immediately will be in the internal server storage market," Reinsel said. "It'll be a fairly gradual thing. You have a huge installed base of 3.5-in. slots out there."

Print this Story

Send Us Feedback

E-mail this Story

Digg this Story

Slashdot this Story

"IBM's old AS400 technology is fading fast, if product names are any indication...." Read more... "This company's infrastructure group is running a disaster recovery exercise with a reluctant participant: an IT manager who's notorious as..." Read more... Read more Servers & Data Center posts or See all Blogs

Microsoft promises four patches next week Google gives away home-cooked Web application security scanner Storm botnet stages Fourth of July attacks More top stories...

Microsoft trumpets security additions in upcoming IE8 Apple cuts price of high-end SSD MacBook Air by $500 Ultrathin showdown: Apple MacBook Air vs. Lenovo ThinkPad X300 vs. Toshiba Portege R500

This old laptop: Revitalizing an aging notebook on the cheap All it takes is a couple hours and about $125 to breathe new life into an old laptop. Here's how. Bill Gates moves on Is Microsoft's Golden Age over? What are Gates' most memorable quotes? Find out in Computerworld's complete coverage of the end of the Bill Gates era at Microsoft. Five things you should never tell your boss There are some things your CIO definitely doesn't want to hear. Also don't miss the flipside, Five things you should always tell your boss. Hands-On: Firefox 3 fixes what's broke and keeps what's right With its latest version, Mozilla's browser continues to raise the bar for what Web browsers should be. Windows Vista A to Z Reviews, analyses, how-tos, visual tours, hot issues and predictions about Microsoft's new OS. More Continuing Coverage After 9/11: Homeland SecurityAsk a Premier 100 IT LeaderBlackBerry Legal BattleData Security BreachesElectronic VotingFirefoxH-1B VisasHP's Boardroom ScandalHandheld DevicesHurricane Katrina AftermathMicrosoft Legal IssuesMicrosoft's VistaOpen SourceRFID TechnologySCO's Linux FightSarbanes-Oxley ActSpamVoice Over IPWi-FiWindows Meta File VulnerabilityWindows XP Service Pack 3 IT Careers 2010 Four years from now, the IT field will be a vastly different place. Will you be ready? More Special Reports Premier 100 IT Leaders 2007 Best in Class2006 Computerworld Horizon Awards2006 Premier 100 IT Leaders2006 Salary Survey2007 Best Places to Work in IT2007 IT Forecast2007 Premier 100 IT Leaders40 Years of ComputerworldASPs, Take TwoBest Places to Work in IT 2003Best Places to Work in IT 2004Best Places to Work in IT 2005Best Places to Work in IT 2006Business Intelligence Home RunsBusiness Intelligence: Smarter BIBusiness Intelligence: The Future of BICRM Goes VerticalCRM: Sober CRMCareer Planning Guide 2005Careers: IT Profession 2010Computerworld Horizon Awards 2005Data Management: Mining for GemsData Management: Taming Data ChaosDevelopment: Hard-Workin' Web SitesDevelopment: New Tools New ChoicesDevelopment: The New World of Application DevelopmentDevelopment: The Web Services TsunamiDevelopment: Web Services HurdlesDisaster Recovery: Preparing for the WorstE-commerce Grows UpE-mail/Groupware: Big DecisionsFaces of Mobile ITForecast 2006Global MobileHardware: Multiple Cores, Multiple ChallengesHardware: On-Demand Un-HypedHardware: The Shape of Things to ComeHorizon Awards: 10 Cool Cutting Edge TechnologiesIT Management: Guide to Managing VendorsIT Management: Navigating Global ITIT Management: Recovery AheadIT Management: The Future of ITIT Management: The Resourceful Project ManagerInnovative Technology Awards 2004Management: Reinventing ITMicrosoft in TransitionMobile/Wireless Leaders and LaggardsMobile/Wireless: The Untethered WorkerMobile/Wireless: Tiny Gadgets, Huge CostsNetwork Management: Taking ControlNetworking: Turbulence Ahead!Networking: VoIP Goes MainstreamOperating Systems: In the Slow LaneOperating Systems: Linux Goes GlobalOperating Systems: Should You Nix Unix?Outsourcing: Offshore Buyer's GuideOutsourcing: Outsourcing DangersPremier 100 IT Leaders 2004 Best in ClassPremier 100 IT Leaders 2005 Best in ClassROI: Do the Math!Salary Survey 2003Salary Survey 2004Salary Survey 2005Security Action PlanSecurity: Compliance HeadachesSecurity: Proactive SecuritySecurity: Risk and RewardSecurity: Tips From Security ProsSouped-up SecurityStorage: Battling ComplexityStorage: Cheap & Secure Data StoresStorage: Stretching Your Storage DollarsStorage: The Lean Storage MachineStorage: The New Rules of StorageStorage: The Ultimate Backup GuideSupply Chain: Missing LinksSupply Chain: RFID Reality CheckThe Business of SecurityWeb 2.0 SecurityWireless: Wireless At Work All Zones Application Performance Zone Business Continuity Zone Data Center Management Zone Enterprise-Class Security Zone The File Data Management Zone Grid Computing on Windows Zone Security Management Zone ITIL Best Practices Zone The SAS Zone Storage Virtualization Zone Business Intelligence and Analytics Zone See your link here

Learn-Fast Guide: Get Up to Speed on Green IT (Source: Computerworld) Whether it's in the front office or the server room, green thinking can save energy, trees and money. From the Editorial Staff at Computerworld, here's the latest thinking on greening your operations. Download this executive briefing  Embracing Innovation - The Business Case for PC Blades Embracing Innovation - The Business Case for PC Blades Watch this webcast now! Go to the webcast  Virtualization Everywhere Download this white paper, free, compliments of Citrix. (Source: Citrix) Adoption of virtualization is concentrated among large enterprises, while adoption by mid-sized companies has been much slower. For these companies, the cost and complexity of server virtualization solutions has been a barrier. In this paper, we'll discuss how Citrix XenServer" provides simple, economical server virtualization for any size company. Download now! Download this white paper  White Papers Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services. Deploying Virtualized NetWare on Linux Whitepaper Toward More Flexible, Next-Generation Collaboration Solutions Driving Business Success Through Workgroup Choice and Flexibility View more whitepapers

• Microsoft promises four patches next week
• Google gives away home-cooked Web application security scanner
• Storm botnet stages Fourth of July attacks
• More top stories 

HP StorageWorks EVA4400 Before now, midsize customers settled for either an expensive and complex array or low cost solution that lacked functionality. Now experience virtual storage with enterprise class functionality at an affordable price. View this product demo now

Intercept Spam & Viruses With MessageLabs MessageLabs is offering a complimentary 30 day trial of its managed Anti-virus and Anti-spam security solutions. MessageLabs guarantees complete protection against all know and unknown email threats. By providing 24 hour support, your business can increase productivity and decrease risk. Register for a complimentary trial and receive a free datasheet. Download this white paper now!