Seagate has introduced what it claims is the world's fastest hard drive: a 15,000rpm, 2.5in 3Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) job designed for servers and enterprise-oriented storage systems. The company also pitched the part's low power consumption and high reliability.

The Savvio 15K has a mean time between failures (MTBF) of 1.6m hours, Seagate said, adding that means companies need 20 per cent fewer drives than they might otherwise have done with 3.5in drives. That means lower over-time costs, Seagate claimed.

It also said the new Savvios consume two-thirds of the power of 3.5in 15,000rpm drives and sport a seek time that's 12 per cent faster.

Segate will offer two Savvio 15Ks, one with 36GB of storage capacity, the other with 73GB. Enterprises wanting greater-capacity drives will be steered, for now, toward Seagate's Savvio 10K.2 2.5in, 10,000rpm drive, the manufacturer indicated. Both series are available immediately, it said. ®