600GB and 900GB 10,000rpm 6Gb SAS SFF SED HDDs Added by IBM

New self-encrypting drives (SEDs) offered by IBM Corp. add high-capacity offerings to the System x and BladeCenter family:

The amount of confidential or proprietary information that is gathered and stored by businesses continues to grow. As the threat of exposure of this data has increased over time, so have the government legislation and industry privacy requirements intended to safeguard this data. These provisions often mandate that corporations safeguard this information for an indefinite amount of time with penalties and other associated expenses attached should a security breach occur.

To reduce the vulnerability of data at rest to potentially costly exposures of proprietary data resulting from HDDs being stolen, misplaced, or even improperly disposed, IBM is introducing 6 Gbps SAS 2.5-inch HS self-encrypting drives (SEDs).

For small and medium or distributed large enterprise businesses, IBM 600GB 10K (90Y8908) and 900GB 10K (81Y9662) 6 Gbps SAS 2.5-inch HS SEDs provide data security with AES 128 disk encryption. These new SED offerings also provide 6 Gbps hot-swap SAS capability for high performance and HA System x environment. SED functionality and 6 Gbps SAS performance of these new drives are enabled when used with new 6 Gbps System x servers and internal ServeRAID controllers with Advance Feature Keys for SED support.

When ServeRAID M5014 (46M0916), ServeRAID M5015 (46M0829), ServeRAID M1115 (81Y4448), or ServeRAID M5110 (81Y4481) is installed, it offers internal RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-5, RAID-10, and RAID-50; the optional M5000 Series Advance Feature Key (46M0930) upgrade is required for SED support and offers additional RAID-6 and RAID-60 functionality.

ServeRAID M1015 (46M0831) provides internal RAID-0, RAID-1, and RAID-10; the optional ServeRAID M1000 (46M0832) Series Advance Feature Key upgrade is required for SED support and also provides additional RAID-5 and RAID-50 capabilities.

Intuitive Management is provided through the MegaRAID Management Suite (MSM), which offers a configuration path to disk encryption and local security key management, and also provides a suite of applications and tools that includes a spectrum of online RAID management and preboot setup utilities.

Specs:

Formatted capacity of 600GB)
Formatted capacity of 900GB)
Drive-to-host interface that supports up to 6.0 Gbps burst rate
Drive media to buffer interface that supports sustained interface data transfers of up to 151 MBps average on the 600GB drive and the900 GB drive
Spindle speed of 10,000 rpm
Hot-swap capability
SAS interface

Reliability:
SAS compliance enables these SEDs to connect directly to selected System x systems. S.M.A.R.T. allows software utilities to alert of certain impending drive failures so replacements can be made before a problem occurs. Testing through the ServerProven program instills confidence that the storage subsystem is compatible and will function reliably.

Warranty:
One-year, customer replaceable unit (CRU), limited warranty

Key prerequisites:
IBM System x system with SAS capability

Planned availability date:
July 30, 2012