Seagate Barracuda ES.2 Hard Drive With SAS-Interface Tops New Storage Performance Council (SPC) Component Benchmarks

Seagate assists IT managers with real-world TCO analysis to choose the best storage systems

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. - October 16, 2008 - Seagate (NASDAQ:STX) today announced a series of SPC-1C™ and SPC-2C™ benchmark results that represent the first component-level measurements by SPC and one of its participating members, and the results showed impressive performance for the Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB SAS hard drive. This Tier 2 nearline drive emerged as the leader in both benchmarks when put to the test against a number of competitor's drives [1, 2]. The benchmarks, aimed at measuring and reporting both random transactional and sequential performance data in real-world environments, help system integrators estimate storage component performance.

The Storage Performance Council's latest SPC-1C and SPC-2C benchmarks allow storage component vendors such as Seagate to produce audited benchmark results using the same workloads as SPC-1 and SPC-2 but at a component level, ranging from a single storage device to a small subsystem of 24 devices or less. It is highly anticipated that the industry standard SPC-1C and SPC-2C will follow in the path of SPC-1 and SPC-2 as the premier industry-wide standard benchmarks for measuring storage components.

"The SPC congratulates Seagate on taking a leadership role in releasing the first set of SPC-1C and
SPC-2C benchmark results." said Walter E. Baker, Administrator and Auditor for the Storage Performance Council. "As IT budgets face continued constraint, but application client demands continue to soar,
SPC-1C and SPC-2C tests will undoubtedly become increasingly important to the entire industry."

In SPC-1C tests that primarily simulate real-world online transaction processing, the Seagate Barracuda ES.2 SAS hard drive was pitted against products from Hitachi, Samsung, and WD. The results showed that the Seagate Barracuda ES.2 hard drive was the only drive capable of achieving 184.37 SPC-1C IOPS™, with the nearest competitor reaching just 170.04 SPC-1C IOPS, and the poorest performer achieving only 119.44 SPC-1C IOPS. In real-world applications where running hundreds or thousands of drives is common, these differences ultimately measure up to significant cost savings.

In the dramatic results of the SPC-2C tests, which measure sequential performance across a range of environments, the Seagate Barracuda ES.2 hard drive set a new benchmark standard by delivering 38% greater performance than the nearest competitor and nearly doubled (93%) the performance set by the competing Hitachi drive.

"We're especially proud to lead the industry with these new, audited SPC component benchmark results because they clearly show that Seagate's SAS storage solutions are an ideal pathway to best deliver and serve the needs of IT professionals who may be evaluating SAS vs. SATA in their own enterprise storage environments," said Sherman Black, senior vice president, Marketing and Strategy Core Products Group. "Delivering continued value and easing integration for our customers is critical, and no company is more focused than Seagate on ensuring that IT professionals will obtain that as well as industry-leading I/O performance, reliability, and data integrity for the life of their storage system."

About the SPC

The SPC is a non-profit corporation founded to define, standardize and promote storage product benchmarks and to disseminate objective, verifiable performance data to the computer industry and its customers. SPC membership is open to all companies, academic institutions and individuals. Every SPC result has been both audited and peer reviewed for compliance to ensure consistency and accuracy. For a complete list of SPC benchmark results, visit the SPC website at http://www.storageperformance.org/home.

About Seagate

Seagate is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of hard disk drives and storage solutions, providing products for a wide-range of applications, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Branded Solutions. Seagate's business model leverages technology leadership and world-class manufacturing to deliver industry-leading innovation and quality to its global customers, with the goal of being the time-to-market leader in all markets in which it participates. The company is committed to providing award-winning products, customer support and reliability to meet the world's growing demand for information storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at http://www.seagate.com.