Seagate’s SeaTools Enterprise utility provides diagnostic and configuration functions for the manufacturer’s SCSI drives. The firm has bumped the drive’s Mean Time Between Failure spec from 1.2 million to 1.4 million hours and claims the 15K.4 is the quietest and coolest 15K Cheetah yet. With the 15K.4, Seagate sees its competitive advantage resting more than ever in reliability and rock-solid operation. Buffer size remains an industry-standard eight megabytes. Seagate’s specs cite a 3.3 millisecond seek time, shaving 0.3 ms off of the 15K.3’s claim. The Cheetah 15K.4 packs over 36 gigabytes of data on each of its four miniscule 2.6 inch platters to expand flagship capacity up to 147 GB.
This year, however, finally saw the announcement of next-generation product from all major players. While ATA drives inched forward here and there, SCSI drive families, ostensibly a level above their consumer-class brothers in reliability, rested where they were. Though it retained a proud first-mover heritage, the 15K.3 certainly received a run for its money when it came to sheer performance.Įnterprise drive manufacturers took a breather in 2003 as the realities of both media and head limitations gripped the industry. By this time, however, competition arrived from the likes of Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Maxtor. Seagate’s 2002 offering, the impressive Cheetah 15K.3, further refined noise and heat output while delivering an eminently-usable 73 gigabytes of storage. The integration of FDB motors finally meant that whisper-quiet idle operation and ultra-high rotation speeds were no longer mutually exclusive. It also heralded the maturity of fluid dynamic bearing motors, a feature that previously found a home only in less robust ATA designs. At just 18 gigabytes, however, there was room for improvement.Ģ001’s Cheetah X15-36LP further tweaked the X15’s design with yet lower seek times and a higher 36-gigabyte capacity. The X15’s arrival rapidly bumped the firm’s previous performance offering, the 10K Cheetah series, into a workhorse role.
In the summer of 2000, Seagate’s original Cheetah X15 caught the attention of both the enterprise and enthusiast sectors as the first drive to ratchet spindle speeds up to a previously unheard-of 15,000 RPM. This review remains for reference purposes only. Please see this article for updated results. Note: Since the publication of this review, this drive has been retested under Testbed4, a newer hardware/software/benchmark platform. How does Seagate’s Cheetah 15K.4 fare? Join us as we take a look at this 147 GB, 15K RPM contender. The first of this highly-anticipated new breed has finally met StorageReview’s Testbed3. Corporate purchasers and enthusiasts alike have all breathlessly awaited the next-generation of 15,000 RPM monsters from the likes of Seagate, Maxtor, Fujitsu, and Hitachi.
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