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Seagate has accelerated its Savvio 2.5-inch drive up to 15,000rpm and doubled its SAS speed, making it the fastest small form factor drive on the market.

The Savvio 15K.2 has a SAS 2.0 interface running at 6Gbit/s and comes in either 73GB or 146GB capacities. It is optionally a self-encrypting drive, using AES encryption, as is the recently announced 10,000rpm Savvio 10K.3. This means data on either drive should be safe from access when the drive is disposed of, or if it is lost or stolen.

Seagate emphasises its power efficiency, saying the drive uses 70 per cent less power than an equivalent 3.5-inch, 15,000rpm drive. Users can also pack more IOPS into a drive shelf compared to the same shelf filled with 3.5-inch drives. IDC expects that 2.5-inch drive shipments will overtake 3.5-inch ones this year because of their better performance in this way and lower power profile.

HP and Dell provided supporting quotes in the Seagate release, so we should expect products from them using the 15K.2 Savvios in short order.

Both the 15K.2 and 10K.3 drives should ship in December, but the self-encrypting versions won't be available until the first quarter next year. ®

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