Seagate has finally released the official specifications for its first dual-actuator hard drive (HDD), the Mach.2 Exos 2X14, and listed it on its website. Although SSDs have become the standard for commercial laptops and workstations, hard drives still have their place in data centers due to their ability to store large amounts of data at relatively low cost. However, Seagate's Mach.2 multi-actuator technology aims to accelerate the speed at which hard drives can transfer data without sacrificing storage capacity. While traditional hard drives have one actuator with read/write heads, the company's Mach.2 drives have two to double their sequential and random read/write speeds. Seagate has been working closely with Microsoft since late 2017 to develop their multi-actuator technology, and based on the Mach.2 Exos 2X14 specifications, their efforts have paid off. The company's first Mach.2 drive has a sustained transfer rate of 524MB/s, which is even faster than its Exos 15E900, making it the fastest HDD in the world today.
Seagate Exos 2X14
Seagate's Exos 2X14 hard drive has a capacity of 14TB, but the drive is basically two 7TB hard drives fused together in a hermetically sealed helium-filled 3,5-inch chassis. It features a 7200RPM rotational speed, a 256MB multi-segment cache, and a 12Gb/s single-port SAS interface. When connected to a server in a data center, the host system will display the Exos 2X14 as two logical drives that can be addressed independently. The sequential read/write speeds of Seagate's new hard drive are so fast that the drive can even compete with some low-cost SATA/SAS SSDs at a much lower cost per TB. Increased drive performance comes at the cost of increased power consumption, with the Exos 2X14 consuming 7,2W in standby mode and up to 13,5W under heavy load. This amount of power is higher than the 12 W typically recommended for 3,5-inch hard drives, but data centers can take advantage of Seagate's PowerBalance capability to reduce power consumption, although this is done at the latest. 50% lower sequential read/write Price 5-10% lower. random reads/writes. While Seagate's first Mach.2 hard drive is now listed on its site, the drive is only available to select customers and won't be on the market anytime soon. However, the company's multi-actuator technology may eventually be found in other hard drives. Via Tom's Hardware