How to compare server hard drives?

Question

What are the metrics and their priorities to compare various hard drives and their accessories for servers?

Answer 1

The metrics:

• Drive type: SSD or conventional hard disk
• Drive connection type: SATA vs. SAS nowadays, maybe FC?
• Capacity
• Rot. speed 5500/7200/10000/15000 RPM
• seek time (is more or less dependent on rot. speed)
• Cost/GB

Not sure what you mean by accessories, though, so some guesses:

• Hot swap case for drives
• RAID controller
• RAID box (i.e. 16disk SATA->FC etc).

Priorities are totally dependent on what you need the server to do and what your budget is.

I.e. if you just need a box to dump files on, without the need for zero downtime and high speeds, you could use server class SATA drives and a software RAID, but if you have a medium-sized database where you need extremely fast query times, you might use a fast SSD drive. So please tell us what you want to do so you can get more helpful infos.

Answer 2

There are many comparison factors such as:

1- Speed / RPM.

2- HD drive is hot-swappable or not.

3- Capacity.

4- Form factor.

5- Interface.

6- Power consumption.

7- Cost.

The priority depends mainly on your needs / requirements.