Toshiba has announced two new hard disk drives in its S300 range. These are 4 and 6 terabyte drives that use shingled magnetic recording, a technique that reduces the price at the expense of writing speeds.
In the technique used, the magnetic fields on a hard disk have some overlap. This makes it possible to cram more data onto a disc but at the expense of writing speed. When writing overlapping tracks, entire sectors must be overwritten.
Maximum of 64 cameras
However, this should not be an obstacle for the purposes of the new hard disk. After all, security cameras provide a constant and predictable data flow. Moreover, these new drives can handle 64 video streams at a time, rather than the 32 of the previous models. Furthermore, the cache buffers have been doubled in size to 256GB.
Further performance data is identical to the other models in the series with 5.56ms latency and a throughput of up to 184MB/s. They also run at 5400 rpm and use a 6Gbit/s data interface. The drives are guaranteed for three years and 600,000 load cycles. It is not known how many platters are in the new drives, but Blocks and Files is guessing two for the 4TB drive and three for the 6TB variant.
Better TCO
“With the latest additions to our S300 Line-up, we are able to fully support the requirements of the surveillance storage market. The new 4TB and 6TB models improve the total cost of ownership (TCO) for small and medium sized businesses while maintaining performance, quality and reliability”, said Larry Martinex-Palomo, general manager of the Storage Products Division at Toshiba’s European division.
Availability
The two new drives are available immediately. Toshiba does not mention prices, but Hardwareluxx suggests prices of about 110 euros for the 4TB variant and 160 euros for the 6TB version.
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