Seagate Releases Fastest 6TB Hard Drive on the Market

This week Seagate released a new enterprise-class high-capacity 6TB hard drive that is faster than all competitors and surprisingly doesn't contain helium. The new hard drive is leading the market in drive capacity and is the fastest in its size group, with data processing speeds that are up to 28% faster than its 4TB predecessor.

Western Digital, Seagate's leading competitor, became the first company to release a 6TB hard drive to the consumer markets back in November of 2013. That hard drive – the Ultrastar He6 – was also the company's first hermetically sealed drive containing helium, a component that Western Digital has stated is essential for the future of high-capacity hard drives.

Why is Helium Used In Hard Drives, and Why Doesn't Seagate Use It?

Helium is used to reduce the friction and heat that is often generated in larger hard drives which frequently process large amounts of data. Although it is a proven fact that using hermetically sealed helium gas does indeed work to protect larger drive capacities, Seagate has stated that they did not need to resort to helium to achieve a 6TB capacity, and that despite the lack of helium their drive is 25% faster than Western Digital's helium-filled Ultrastar He6.

However, one of Seagate's marketing managers Barbara Craig has essentially stated that the company will certainly use helium in future hard drives when it is needed, but that the current capacity of 6TB does not require helium to maintain efficient and safe performance.

What Other Features Does the New Enterprise Capacity Drive Offer?

In addition to the fast data processing speeds and massive drive capacity, the new hard drive is equipped with a humidity sensor that allows it to stay functioning safely in particularity humid environments. There are also smaller versions of the drive available in 2 Terabyte, 4 Terabyte, and 5 Terabyte capacities, all of which are compatible with 6Gbps SATA or 12Gbps SAS connectivity.

As is the case with previous Seagate enterprise drives, the new 6TB drive is self-encrypting using the company's proprietary Instant Secure Erase technology, which serves to overwrite data multiple times in order to allow for secure deletion.

The integrated “Super Parity” error correction firmware is equipped with RAID data rebuilding functionality within the SAS controller, allowing for quick restoration of data. For comparison's sake, the new drive allows for terabytes of data to be restored in a matter of hours instead of days.

The new drive can also sustain a much larger volume of data writes per year – up to 550TB – which is ten times the workload that the company’s latest consumer desktop drives are capable of handling.