HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies), which became a division of
Western Digital in March 2012, has announced that SAS-based server disks
in the 2,5″ form factor section have now a capacity of 1200 GB which equals
a doubling of space to the actual maximum capacity disks available.

The Ultrastar C10K1200 (which stands for 10.00rpm, 1200GB) comes with 64MB Cache memory and a 6Gb SAS-interface. For the data security, the Drive is concepted as SED (Self-encrypting Drive) using AES-256bit technology.

Speaking of metrics: Based upon a 4-platter design, the drive comes with a 15mm height and an idle power consuption of roughly 3.7 watts. When under load, the drive forks over 200 MB per second consuming about 6.7 watts. Compared to the current 600GB-model which comes in a 12mm housing and has only 3 platters, the data density is slightly lower: 494 vs 448 Gbit per sqare inch. While the 600GB-model has less platters to spin, it’s power consumption is also lower: in idle it consumes 3 watts, under load only 4.8 watts.

So all in all, the new drive offers more capacity at the cost of more power consumption.

This drive might mark the maximum capacity, which is currently possible using the actual data recording technology. Increasing the capacity is only possible using thermal-based recording technology known as HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording), With this technology, a capacity increasement of the factor 100 seems possible. But as of now, HAMR is still not ready for the mass market and PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) is still the choice #1.