[Brian]

We just received Seagate's latest drive in their enterprise-class 3.5" Constellation ES 2TB drive.

Product Page

We'll get it into the testing regimen soon. In the interim, please post questions or specific issues you'd like to see covered with this drive.

Drive highlights:

• 4th generation enterprise-class drive
  
• PowerChoice™ host-selectable power options
  
• 6Gb/s SAS performance
  
• 2TB, 1TB, 500GB capacities
  
• 7200 RPM
  
• MTBF of 1.2 million hours

[continuum]

Is this the SATA or the SAS version? I know Seagate makes both.

[Brian]

This one is the SATA version. The SAS version isn't available yet.

[mockingbird]

Looking forward to this.

How much will the SATA version of this drive cost (Particularly the lower capacities like the 500GB).

Also can you test the NCQ performance please?

Thanks

[Brian]

I don't have pricing info yet, but I suspect we will by the time we post the review.

[continuum]

span.com has 'em for preorder for US$350 for the 2TB SATA version. The SAS version is still listed as "TBC".

I am very curious to finally see these drives out of the tier-1 OEM availability realm and into the realm of us mere mortals... I have ten Barracuda ES.2 1TB SATA's I need to upgrade to Constellation ES 2TB's or A7K2000's at some point.

[Brian]

Shhhh, I'll send you the photos - have your way with them

[dilidolo]

I've been waiting for the SAS version for a few months.

[stevecs]

I was also really hoping as I'm running out of rack space for the 1TB drives, however if they are still following a 1:10^15 bit uncorrectable error rate that's still insane at 12% per full drive read. For enterprise use (at least using their own label) even in nearline storage where these would be used you would do full checks at least weekly, plus whatever production I/O is going to/from the subsystems.

I know they know how to do it (their tier-1 drives all have 10^16 already). Sure w/ 512byte blocks it takes up more space on the platter for the ECC functions, but I would be more than willing to shell out the same $$ for a 1.5TB drive at 10^16 rating than for a 2TB at 10^15. (heck, would love this on even 1TB drives).

[Telstar The Sorcerer]

Compare performance with the WD and Hitachi enterprise models, if possible