What is an Enterprise Hard Drive?
An enterprise hard drive is a high-performance hard disk drive (HDD) designed for mission-critical, heavy-use server workloads and applications. Unlike consumer HDDs, enterprise drives are engineered to run 24/7 in challenging data center environments and withstand high vibration/shock, component failures, intensive read/write loads, and thermal issues.
Enterprise HDDs emphasize reliability, speed, and capacity over cost. Key features include high mean time between failures (MTBF), optimized firmware, powerful error correction, and advanced failure prediction algorithms. Enterprise drives usually carry longer warranties of 3-5 years compared to 1-2 years for consumer models.
Typical uses include storage for databases, virtualization, SAN/NAS, servers, backup/archiving, and high performance computing. Leading vendors include Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, and HGST.
Reliability
Enterprise hard drives are built for 24/7 operation and are designed to handle heavy workloads in data centers and servers. They have a much higher mean time between failures (MTBF) than consumer hard drives, usually around 1.2 million hours compared to 600,000 hours for consumer drives (SabrePC). The MTBF is a statistical measurement of the average time a drive will operate before failing.
Enterprise drives also employ advanced error checking and recovery features to prevent and recover from data corruption. This includes features like TLER (time-limited error recovery) which prevents the drive from dropping offline during excessive retries. They also utilize advanced caching algorithms to optimize performance during random and sequential workloads.
Performance
Enterprise hard drives are designed for optimal performance in demanding environments like data centers and servers. They offer much faster speeds compared to consumer hard drives in several key areas:
Fast rotational speeds – Enterprise drives typically spin at 10,000 RPM (rotational speed), whereas consumer drives max out at 7,200 RPM. Some enterprise drives even reach 15,000 RPM for the absolute lowest latency. The faster rotational speed reduces the wait time when accessing data on the platters.
Low latency – The combination of fast RPMs, optimized firmware, and sometimes technologies like NVCache help minimize seek times and deliver exceptionally low latency. This improves overall workload performance.
High data transfer speeds – Enterprise drives utilize faster disk interfaces like SAS and Fibre Channel to enable higher sequential and random data transfer rates. For example, a common 12 Gb/s SAS interface can achieve speeds over 1,000 MB/s.1
In summary, the optimized performance of enterprise HDDs results in much faster operation for workloads like databases, servers, and virtualization compared to standard hard drives.
Capacity
Enterprise hard drives are designed for very high capacity storage, with drives available up to 16TB. For example, Seagate offers Exos X16 hard drives with up to 16TB capacity in a standard 3.5-inch form factor, providing extremely dense data storage[1]. Western Digital also offers Ultrastar enterprise drives up to 16TB[2]. These high capacity drives are achieved through technologies like shingled magnetic recording and advanced caching algorithms.
The continuous demand for greater storage capacity has pushed drive manufacturers to steadily increase capacities over time. For example, Seagate achieved a major milestone in 2019 with the first 14TB hard drive for enterprise applications[3]. More recently in 2022, Western Digital announced 20TB Ultrastar drives using OptiNAND technology[4]. These advances allow enterprise customers to achieve extremely dense storage with minimal hardware footprint.
Advanced Features
Enterprise hard drives have several advanced features not found in typical consumer hard drives. These features optimize them for use in enterprise environments like data centers and servers.
One key feature is hot swappability, which allows drives to be removed and replaced while the system is running without disrupting operations. This minimizes downtime for maintenance and replacements.
Enterprise drives also utilize advanced caching techniques to optimize performance, such as large cache sizes up to 256MB and adaptive read-ahead algorithms. This accelerates access to frequently requested data.
Since servers and racks can vibrate and disrupt drives, enterprise HDDs incorporate vibration protection with sensors and fly-height adjustments. This maintains performance through physical disturbances.
For security, some enterprise drives support self-encryption features like instant secure erase and AES-256 bit encryption. This protects data at rest without dedicated encryption hardware.
These advanced attributes allow enterprise HDDs to reliably operate 24/7 under demanding workloads and conditions.
Form Factors
Enterprise hard drives come in two main form factors – 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch. The 3.5-inch form factor is known as a large form factor drive, while the 2.5-inch is a small form factor drive.1 3.5-inch drives are designed for desktop computers and data centers, offering greater capacity and performance. 2.5-inch drives are designed for laptops and other portable devices where size and power consumption are bigger constraints.
Within those form factors, there are also two common height formats:2
- Full-height – These are the standard height for each form factor, 3.5 inches for 3.5-inch drives and 15mm for 2.5-inch drives.
- Half-height – As the name suggests, these are half the height of full-height drives. Half-height 3.5-inch drives are 1.6 inches tall. Half-height 2.5-inch drives are 9.5mm tall.
Half-height drives provide a thinner profile for space constrained setups, but often have lower capacity and performance than full-height enterprise models. Full-height drives maximize capacity and throughput but require more vertical space.
Interface
Enterprise hard drives typically use either Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or Serial ATA (SATA) interfaces to connect to servers and storage systems. SAS and SATA use different connectors and protocols:
SAS drives utilize the SAS interface which allows for transfer speeds up to 12 Gb/s in the latest version, SAS-4. SAS uses a point-to-point serial protocol for connections and supports advanced enterprise features like dual-porting to connect drives to multiple controllers for redundancy.
SATA drives use the SATA interface which has speeds up to 6 Gb/s in the latest SATA III version. SATA uses a shared bus architecture instead of point-to-point. While SATA drives are cheaper, SAS is considered the enterprise-grade interface designed for performance, reliability and scalability.[1]
RAID Support
Enterprise hard drives are optimized for use in RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) environments, which spread data across multiple drives for increased performance, capacity, and reliability.
Enterprise drives support features critical for RAID:[1]
- Built for RAID – Enterprise drives are engineered to handle the rigorous 24/7 workloads and vibration found in RAID arrays.
- TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) – This allows drives to coordinate error recovery when used in a RAID, preventing the RAID controller from dropping the drive from the array.
By supporting TLER and being designed for heavy RAID workloads, enterprise drives provide the reliability needed for critical business applications relying on RAID storage.
[1] https://www.westerndigital.com/solutions/raid
Major Brands
The major enterprise hard drive brands are Seagate, Western Digital (WD), Toshiba, and Hitachi.
Seagate is one of the largest HDD manufacturers and offers a wide range of enterprise drives like the Exos X series which focuses on maximum storage density and high performance for demanding workloads. The Exos X16 boasts up to 16TB capacity and speeds up to 261MB/s.
WD’s enterprise lineup includes the Gold series designed for data centers, the Ultrastar series for cloud and hyperscale environments, and the Red Pro series for NAS storage. The WD Gold 16TB drive provides speeds up to 255MB/s.
Toshiba’s N300 NAS and X300 performance hard drives are engineered for reliability with features like RV sensors and dual-stage actuation. The N300 goes up to 14TB while the X300 tops out at 18TB.
Hitachi’s Ultrastar series now falls under Western Digital after the acquisition. But Hitachi drives like the Ultrastar DC HC620 are known for high capacities up to 20TB and the ability to handle heavy workloads 24/7.
Use Cases
Enterprise hard drives are designed for demanding storage needs and are commonly used in the following environments:
Data centers – Data centers require vast amounts of secure and reliable data storage. The high capacity, performance and advanced features of enterprise drives make them well-suited for data center storage infrastructure like SAN and NAS.
Cloud storage – Public cloud providers rely on enterprise-class drives to offer highly available and resilient storage for their customers. The drives are built to sustain near 24/7 operation and handle heavy workloads.
High performance computing – Applications like simulations, computational research, and financial modeling generate and process enormous datasets. Enterprise drives provide the speed, reliability and scalability needed for these data-intensive workloads.
Big data analytics – Enterprise drives can handle the massive streams of data that feed big data analytics platforms. Their performance and RAID optimizations help accelerate read/write speeds during data analysis.
