Hitachi has released what it claims to be the fastest professional 10,000RPM hard drive. While spinning at the same speed as rivals, the 600GB Ultrastar C10K600’s 64MB of cache and optimizations help it transfer data about 15 percent faster in random seeks and 18 percent faster sequentially than the previous best. Although more energy-saving than a usual desktop drive by its notebook-sized 2.5-inch design, newer power management also makes it about 22 percent more efficient than rivals.
The drive attaches through a 6Gbps SAS link and has the option of hardware encryption to lock unauthorized access to the data stored inside. Hitachi claims an overall more responsive drive as well, not just raw speed, as the average lag has dropped to as little as 3ms with average seeks taking 3.7ms.
New Ultrastars are already shipping.
