Today hard drives have begun to be replaced by SSDs, but in 2000 they were at the peak. He Seagate Cheetah X15 marked a milestone when reaching A 15,000 rpm turn speedbecoming the fastest hard drive of the moment. 25 years later it has not been overcome.
The hard drive Seagate Cheetah X15 It had a capacity of 18.4 GB, a low access time of only 3.2 ms, and a reading rate of 40 MB/SG. It was 25% faster than any other hard drive of the time, thanks to its incredible turn speed of 15.000 rpm.
Why today, a quarter of a century later, there are no hard drives of more than 15,000 rpm? There are several reasons.
Seagate Cheetah X15, a hard drive at 15,000 rpm
According to the German website Heise-dewho had the opportunity to try the Seagate Cheetah X15inside there were five discs of 3.7 GB capacity, with a 4 MB cache memory. I only consumed a maximum of 12.5 W.
Although the discs revolved faster than anyone, it generated less noise than other slower HDDs. It connected to the servers (it was a hard drive for server) by means of an Ultra160 SCSI connector.
Hard discs are formed by several albums that revolve at a certain speed. The standard discs rotate at 5,200 rpm (revolutions per minute), that is, 5,200 turns every minute. Today the most common are los HDD a 7.200 rpm.
The fastest hard drives reach 10,000 rpm, but only Seagate Cheetah X15 reached 15,000 rpm commercially.
As a faster, turn a record, sooner it reaches the data you want to read. So why has this speed been overcome? Several factors must be taken into account.
First of all, As a faster, a disc, the more heat generates, and more energy must be used to stop itdue to inertia or disk change. It also requires more reliable and precise components. That is, more expensive.
Aspects such as refrigeration or consumption itself influence the price, and in many cases it does not compensate to increase the speed, because Hard discs are mainly used to store.
Rudy Thibodeau, then Seagate Marketing Executive Director, explained in an interview in Heise-de what, From 15,000 rpm, the reduction of access time is very small. It would be necessary to reach 30,000 rpm to lower it to 1 ms. But folding the turn speed is very complicated at the technical level.
Possibly that milestone would have been reached. But then the SSD arrived, which today are also used for servers, and hard drives went to the backgroundbeing as mass storage systems where speed is not so important.
Other more complex techniques are currently used, from more cache memory to advanced access technologies, which allow you to obtain better access times and reading speeds, without having to increase the speed of rotation.
Seagate Cheetah X15, the fastest commercial hard drive in history, turns 25 years old. Its 15,000 rpm are a milestone that, possibly, will never be exceeded, because it is not necessary either.
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Tags: Computers, retro, hard drives, curiosities, hardware