Desktop or Laptop HDDs vs Server HDDs
Desktop or Laptop hard drives are introduced for the budget segment to fulfill the storage needs of desktop or laptop PCs. These consumer-grade storage drives are linked with the storage of different files and the installing mainstream applications and programs. If you want to increase your storage with minimum expenditure, acquiring an additional HDD can fulfill your storage needs.
Hard drives possess a mechanical infrastructure and when it comes to performance, desktop HDDs feature a rotational speed of 5400 to 7200RPM which is enough to ensure promising performance required by the consumer segment. On the other hand, laptop HDDs feature rotational speeds upto 5400 RPM and less storage space than their desktop counterparts due to their smaller size of 2.5 inches.
Enterprise-grade IT infrastructures or data centers such as cloud servers that use to handle overwhelming workloads, heavy applications, hold enormous data records, and perform read/write operations 24/7 require much better computational and mechanical support to ensure data availability under stressed working conditions. To ensure high performance, servers or cloud merchants require 10,000 – 15,000 RPM server hard drives, as 2x the rotational speed offered by most consumer-segment hard drives. You cannot expect quiet operations from server HDDs due to their high rotational speeds but this is not something to worry about at enterprise scale.
Why do we need Server HDDs?
As servers and clouds are more vulnerable to failures as they have to deal with enormous workloads and multiple search queries from the client-side, the likelihood of any crash or error is notably higher than an average PC. Desktop or Laptop PCs can eventually be turned off when not in use. On the other hand, enterprise-grade server hard drives have to perform complex calculations 24/7 and face stress beyond the range of consumer-grade hard drives. To sustain the requirements needed to handle heavy workloads, server hard drives possess some additional features like:
- Cooling mechanisms inside the chassis
- Vibration detection and reduction
- Continuous airflow inside the chassis
- Hot-swapping, etc
Why Choose Dell Server Hard Drives?
Dell manufacturing facilities introduce their server hard drives to the market after ensuring a strict validation practice. That’s why only the perfect CBUs that stand the performance benchmarks and show promising results in stressed conditions are made available for purchase. Such a dedicated testing model ensures a higher Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) and less rotational vibration that translates to the overall durability of the server HDD. Apart from this, Dell offers a comprehensive warranty for Dell-branded HDDs.
To provide continuous support to its valued customer base throughout the promised lifetime of its products, Dell tends to release an online firmware update.
If you want to increase your server storage with a high-performing and decent capacity of Dell’s server HDD, You can choose from a variety of products that support the SAS interface and hot-plugging such as Dell AGDG server HDD. Dell AGDG server HDD features 900GB of storage space and it can be a mind-blowing product when it comes to high performance. Dell AGDG server hard drive also features a SAS interface and comes in a 2.5-inches form factor with a rotational speed of 10000 RPM. All these features make Dell AGDG one of the best server hard drives available in the market.
The specifications of Dell AGDG server HDD are as under:
| Product Specifications | |
| Product Name | 400-AHEW / KF4WW |
| Product Type | Hard Drive SED Kit |
| Drive Interface | SAS/ Serial Attached SCSI 2 |
| Width | 2.5″ |
| Drive Transfer Rate | 1200 MB/s (External) 12Gbps |
| Storage Capacity | 900GB |
| Hot Swappable | Yes |
| Spindle Speed (RPM) | 10000 |
Types of Dell Server Hard Drives
Dell-branded enterprise-grade server hard drives are available as 2 different categories, namely:
- Mission Critical (Performance Optimized)
Dell’s Mission Critical (Performance Optimized) server HDDs are intended to accommodate high-end applications or programs that demand high reliability and enhanced performance. These server HDDs are only available in 2.5 inches sizes.
- Business Critical (Capacity Optimized)
Dells’ Business Critical (Capacity Optimized) server hard drives are used to ensure high capacities compared to Mission Critical segment but they are not centric around much higher performance. These server HDDs are available in both 2.5 and 3.5 inches sizes, depending upon the capacity they offer.
Improved Sector Size
In the last decade, all leading hard drive manufacturers started to make a transition from the conventional 512 bytes sector size to a remarkably larger sector size of 4KB (4K bytes). This improved sector size is standardized and named as Advanced Format by IDEMA. With every passing day, more server hard drives coming to the market are gradually adopting this new format.
Outro
Dell is one of the best companies that sell storage devices under their brand name which are developed by partner manufacturers and passed through strict scrutiny by Dell facilities before coming to the market. With one of its best-selling products like Dell AGDG server hard drive, you can experience a promising boost in your server’s performance and secure massive amounts of data without any fear of losing your data by any means.