INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   When it comes to PCs and MACs most people believe that the heart of the system is the CPU with the exception of gamers who naturally put the GPU (graphics card) above everything else. I too had the same opinion almost a decade ago but slowly and after countless of storage related reviews i begun to realize that the true heart of a system is neither the CPU nor the GPU but rather the storage device regardless of whether we are talking about mechanical HDDs or SSDs. You see no matter of what kind of CPU or GPU a system has you can always perform certain functions, perhaps not the highest demanding ones but you can nevertheless. However without a storage device or with one that has but a limited available capacity there's really that many things one can do especially nowadays when most people have several TBs of data. Now last month we tested the latest Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V.3 4TB SATA III enterprise class hard disk drives (former Constellation ES.3) by Seagate which pretty much dominated the competition. Well today we will be taking a look at the SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) variants which as you will see later on had no issue surpassing their SATA brothers to become the fastest HDDs to ever pass from our test bench.

 

   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.

 

   Many people have the wrong impression that SAS drives are largely superior to SATA drives due to their higher rotational speeds but that's not really the case (not always anyways). So compared to the SATA III model of the Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V.3 4TB HDD the SAS variant has nothing more to offer specs-wise since they both have 128MB of cache, spin at 7200RPM, have an 1.4 million MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) and share the same features such as Seagate’s PowerChoice technology (reduced power consumption up to 54%), enhanced error correction, super-parity, ramp load technology (Read/Write heads/sliders move from an small ramp placed inside the drive and onto the surface of the disks only when the optimal rotational speed has been achieved), enhanced rotational vibration tolerance (vibration reduction) and a humidity sensor (controls the vertical position of the heads/sliders) for optimum performance. Generally however since SAS drives require an dedicated SAS controller to work with they can achieve higher data transfer speeds compared to regular SATA controllers (especially if you use a good dedicated SAS card) and can also provide increased data safety and encryption (always depends on the capabilities of the controller). So let's move forward with this review to see just how the SAS variant compares to the SATA variant.

 

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ENTERPRISE CAPACITY 3.5 V.3 4TB SAS 6GB/S

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As usual we received two drives for RAID0 tests in bulk/OEM packaging.

 

 

The housing of the drives is identical with the one used by Seagate for their SATA III brothers as expected (slight differences compared to their predecessors).

 

 

Both drives are amongst the first ones to leave the factory before the renaming from Constellation ES.3 to Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V.3. So at the large sticker placed at the top we see the Seagate logo, drive connectivity, product number, serial number, electrical requirements, warning/certification logos, country of manufacture, installed firmware version and the coded factory roll out date (2012-12-14).

 

 

The standard mounting holes are present on both sides.

 

 

Once again at the rear we see that Seagate has placed all of the components in the other side of the PCB for extra protection.

 

 

Although the SAS connector is similar to the SATA connector you can't plug an SAS drive on a SATA controller (SAS controllers however are also SATA compatible).

 

 

 

TEST BED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

 

     Thoroughly testing hard disk drives may require time and patience but that's just about it. Of course that doesn't mean that one must take it lightly, at least not when people base their decision on your results. True many choose to only use 2 or 3 benchmarking suits in order to measure the performance of a drive or drives since quite honestly most benchmarking suites do tend to agree with each other (so it's not really the wrong thing to do) but we always like to take things a step further not because we have to but because we want to be almost 100% certain of the results we get and post in our charts.

 

     SAS drive testing is more complicated than testing regular SATA drives and so although we use the same 6 benchmark suites as with SATA tests in an effort to bring you the most accurate results across the board things are a bit different since we are required to configure/tweak some of those programs to address compatibility issues with the SAS card used. This may not be exactly "fair" for the SAS drive/s in hand since we test them with much heavier read/write loads in some of the suites used but that's the only way to get realistic results without taking into account certain card-specific performance boosts. So once again the benchmarking applications we use are the AIDA64 suite (former Everest Pro), HD Tune Professional (Partial Test/Full Accuracy), HD Tach RW (Full Bench), ATTO (2GB Length), Sisoftware Sandra Pro and the Crystal Disk Mark 64bit (2000MB mode). These benchmark tools are the best at what they do and as you will also see later on their results more or less agree. Each test is performed a total of 6 times and then the average is recorded into the charts. Temperatures are recorded using Hard Disk Sentinel and after 45 minutes of continuous testing in a 23 degrees Celsius temperature controlled room. Finally we also use an ExTech HD600 dBA meter on each of the drives (5cm away) in order to accurately record their noise levels, although if you don't turn off all system fans when doing so it's quite possible that you will never actually hear the drive working. The operating system as usual is a fresh installation of Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Service Pack 1 with every update installed up until the 20th of February 2013 while both single and RAID 0/1 SAS drive tests are performed using an LSI MegaRAID 9265-8i SAS/SATA III 6Gb/s card updated with the latest firmware and drivers.

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - TEMPERATURES / NOISE LEVELS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - RAID0 PART 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - RAID0 PART 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   It actually took us quite a bit more time than we had initially expected to finish this review because after performing the latest firmware update on our LSI MegaRAID 9265-8i SATA/SAS card we witnessed a large performance boost on RAID0 configurations (especially in Crystal Disk Mark) and so we had to sit down and re-do every single RAID0 test with all the drives we have here (and that takes time). Lucky for us single drive performance was not affected by this firmware update in any way (we even triple-checked that just to be sure) so in the end things were not as bad as they could have been. That aside not really much to say about the Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V.3 4TB SAS 6Gb/s drive that one can’t see just by going through our charts is there? The SATA III variant already surpassed every single HDD so we knew right from the start that the SAS version would do even better. What we didn't really expect was the large performance gaps we encountered in some tests even after changing the parameters to compensate for the performance boost features by the MegaRAID 9265-8i SAS/SATA card. Still it is what it is and so currently the Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V.3 4TB SAS 6Gb/s variant (ST4000NM0023) is the fastest HDD (7200RPM one at least) to have ever passed from our test bench to date in both single and RAID0 configuration.

 

   Since we are basically talking about two variants of the same HDD based on connectivity naturally the price can't be very different between them and it's not since currently the Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V3 4TB SAS 6Gb/s (ST4000NM0023) model retails for USD422 inside the USA (Amazon) and at around 370Euros inside the EU a price tag which is roughly USD20/10Euros over the SATA III model. Of course in order to use an SAS type HDD/SSD you also need to purchase an SAS card (if you don't have one already) and although a basic one will set you back just around USD150/150Euros a very good one like the LSI MegaRAID 9265-8i or the Areca ARC-1882i will set you back at least another USD550/550Euros so in the end things are not so simple and the cost piles up. However we are talking about a product which is purely aimed for professional and enterprise 24/7 environments and not for home use. So although the cost is higher than its SATA III brother the SAS variant is faster (especially in RAID0 configurations) and when paired with a good SAS card it can offer important features that can help safeguard your data so our Platinum award is really a one way here.

 

PROS

- Enterprise Class Quality
- 1.4 Million Hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)
- Top Performance
- Increased Data Safety
- 4TB's Capacity
- Power Choice Technology
- Temperatures/Noise Levels
- 5 Years Warranty 

 

 

CONS

- Total Price (For Some)