Seagate has announced a new line of enterprise storage drives, dubbed Constellation, with which it aims to deliver massive capacities and cut power consumption in data centers. The drives include a 2.5-inch model available in 160GB and 500GB capacities, and the 3.5-inch Constellation ES drive which comes in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB versions. Both of them use PowerChoice technology to reportedly decrease power consumption by up to 54 percent, and ship with either a SATA2 or SAS 2.0 interface to offer throughput speeds of 3Gbps and 6Gbps respectively.
Western Digital has also recently announced 2TB drives, but Seagate believes that its drives have the edge on other offerings. On the speed front, for example, with Seagate's 2TB constellation drive running at a full 7200RPM while Western Digital's model operates at an eco-friendly undisclosed speed close to 5,400RPM. Given that as hard drives get more capacious it takes longer for them to seek out data, speed is an especially important concern, and key to enterprise customers.
The company is not releasing pricing details but merely describes them as competitive on price within the market. The 2.5-inch Constellation is expected to begin shipping before the close of the quarter, while the 3.5-inch Constellation ES is likely to arrive in the third quarter.