INTRODUCTION

   Since day one we've tried bring you reviews of as many SSD models as possible and although we mostly focus on consumer oriented models since that's where the majority of our readers belong (obviously) we also test enterprise class models from time to time to cater to the needs of our more demanding readers. Now as many of you are well aware although the latest 12GB/s standard has been with us for good well over a year now there aren't really many compatible storage solutions in the market as we speak so it's not easy for us to compare similar products. Still when Seagate last year introduced their high-performance 600 and 600 Pro SATA III SSD lines aimed at consumers and professionals they also introduced the 1200 SAS 12Gb/s SSD line aimed towards intensive enterprise workloads and today we will be thoroughly testing the 400GB variant of that line.

   Founded in 1979, Seagate is the leading provider of hard drives and storage solutions. From the videos, music and documents we share with friends and family on social networks, to servers that form the backbone of enterprise data centers and cloud-based computing, to desktop and notebook computers that fuel our personal productivity, Seagate products help more people store, share and protect their valuable digital content. Seagate offers the industry’s broadest portfolio of hard disk drives, solid-state drives and solid-state hybrid drives. In addition, the company offers an extensive line of retail storage products for consumers and small businesses, along with data-recovery services for any brand of hard drive and digital media type. Seagate employs more than 50,000 people around the world.

   The 1200 SSD series by Seagate is available in 200/400/800GB capacities and is much more advanced compared to the 600/pro SSD lines not only because we're talking about a SAS 12Gb/s compatible product but also because it wears a custom-designed Marvell SSD NAND flash controller (custom firmware) paired with 21nm eMLC NAND flash modules (10 DWPD endurance) by Samsung (something we don't really see in SSDs other than the ones Samsung makes) and a total of 512MB of DDR3-1600 cache. As expected from enterprise grade SSD models Seagate also offers SED and FIPS 140-2 protection for the 1200 SSD (different models) and incorporates capacitors to protect data in case of a power loss. So since we're quite intrigued to see how the 1200 SSD 400GB model will compare with every other model in our charts let's move on.