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Western Digital Expands Purple Lineup with a 10 TB Helium-Filled HDD
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Western Digital Expands Purple Lineup with a 10 TB Helium-Filled HDD

Western Digital has expanded its Purple lineup of hard drives, aimed at video surveillance applications, with a 10 TB helium-filled HDD. The drive is optimized for write-intensive workloads and supports various technologies that minimize the number of potential errors due to the high-number of incoming data streams. The new WD Purple is also the company’s first 10 TB HDD with a 5400 RPM spindle speed and a large cache.

The WD Purple 10 TB drive (WD100PURZ) is based on the HelioSeal platform featuring seven PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) platters with ~1.4 TB capacity apiece, which it inherited from last year’s top-of-the-range HDDs. The increased areal density of the platters allowed the hard drive to increase its sustained transfer speed from host to drive to 210 MB/s, or by ~18% compared to the previous-generation helium-sealed WD Purple 8 TB HDD (WD80PUZX, 178 MB/s). This is at the same 5400 RPM spindle speed and at a slightly lower power consumption (up to 6.2 W vs up to 6.4 W). Just like other hard drives with a 10 TB capacity, the new WD Purple is equipped with a 256 MB DRAM buffer, which may further increase the real-world performance of the HDD against its predecessors.

Comparison of Western Digital’s WD Purple HDDs
  WD100PURZ WD80PUZX WD60PURX WD50PURX
Capacity 10 TB 8 TB 6 TB 5 TB
RPM 5400 RPM
Interface SATA 6 Gbps
DRAM Cache 256 MB 128 MB 64 MB
Helium-Filling Yes No
Data Transfer Rate (host to/from drive) 210 MB/s 178 MB/s 170 MB/s 150 MB/s
MTBF unknown 1 million hours
Rated Workload (read and write) 180 TB/year
Acoustics (Seek) 29 dBA 26 dBA
Power Consumption Sequential read/write 6.2 W 6.4 W 5.3 W
Idle 5 W 5.7 W 4.9 W
Sleep 0.5 W 0.7 W 0.4 W
Warranty 3 Years
Price (as of April 2017) $399.99 $281.99 $214 $200
$0.04 per GB $0.035 per GB $0.035 per GB $0.04 per GB
25 GB per $ 28.39 GB per $ 28.03 GB per $ 25 GB per $

Since the WD Purple hard drives are purpose-built for video surveillance applications, they support the ATA streaming extension of the SATA standard as well as a number of WD proprietary technologies, including AllFrame 4K cache policy management and firmware enhancements to optimize data flows during playback and writing. All WD Purple drives can work with up to 64 cameras and are rated for a 180 TB/year workload. In addition, high-capacity WD Purple HDDs are optimized for operation in NVRs and DVRs with more than eight drives and support time-limited error recovery technology (TLER), which prevents drive fallout caused by extended HDD error recovery processes.

Western Digital claims that the new WD Purple 10 TB is compatible with new and existing video surveillance systems (including chassis, chipsets, etc.) and thus can be used for new and current deployments (except those that require drives with 512B/512e sectors – the new WD Purple only support 4Kn sectors). The manufacturer has already started to ship the new hard drives to its partners and they will be available shortly for $399.99.

While the addition of a 10 TB HDD into the WD Purple series is a significant event, the fact that Western Digital began to roll out 10 TB helium-filled hard drives with a 5400 RPM spindle speed is even more important (until recently, WD used to offer only 8 TB helium-filled 5K HDDs). With the introduction of a 10 TB product with a reduced spindle speed, Western Digital can launch WD Red and WD My Book hard drives of the same capacity in the coming weeks or months. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that recently Western Digital cut down the price of its WD Purple 8 TB HDD by 30% and it can now be acquired for $281.99 from Amazon.

Related Reading:

Western Digital Expands Purple Lineup with a 10 TB Helium-Filled HDD
  • Comments are Closed

Western Digital Expands Purple Lineup with a 10 TB Helium-Filled HDD

Western Digital has expanded its Purple lineup of hard drives, aimed at video surveillance applications, with a 10 TB helium-filled HDD. The drive is optimized for write-intensive workloads and supports various technologies that minimize the number of potential errors due to the high-number of incoming data streams. The new WD Purple is also the company’s first 10 TB HDD with a 5400 RPM spindle speed and a large cache.

The WD Purple 10 TB drive (WD100PURZ) is based on the HelioSeal platform featuring seven PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) platters with ~1.4 TB capacity apiece, which it inherited from last year’s top-of-the-range HDDs. The increased areal density of the platters allowed the hard drive to increase its sustained transfer speed from host to drive to 210 MB/s, or by ~18% compared to the previous-generation helium-sealed WD Purple 8 TB HDD (WD80PUZX, 178 MB/s). This is at the same 5400 RPM spindle speed and at a slightly lower power consumption (up to 6.2 W vs up to 6.4 W). Just like other hard drives with a 10 TB capacity, the new WD Purple is equipped with a 256 MB DRAM buffer, which may further increase the real-world performance of the HDD against its predecessors.

Comparison of Western Digital’s WD Purple HDDs
  WD100PURZ WD80PUZX WD60PURX WD50PURX
Capacity 10 TB 8 TB 6 TB 5 TB
RPM 5400 RPM
Interface SATA 6 Gbps
DRAM Cache 256 MB 128 MB 64 MB
Helium-Filling Yes No
Data Transfer Rate (host to/from drive) 210 MB/s 178 MB/s 170 MB/s 150 MB/s
MTBF unknown 1 million hours
Rated Workload (read and write) 180 TB/year
Acoustics (Seek) 29 dBA 26 dBA
Power Consumption Sequential read/write 6.2 W 6.4 W 5.3 W
Idle 5 W 5.7 W 4.9 W
Sleep 0.5 W 0.7 W 0.4 W
Warranty 3 Years
Price (as of April 2017) $399.99 $281.99 $214 $200
$0.04 per GB $0.035 per GB $0.035 per GB $0.04 per GB
25 GB per $ 28.39 GB per $ 28.03 GB per $ 25 GB per $

Since the WD Purple hard drives are purpose-built for video surveillance applications, they support the ATA streaming extension of the SATA standard as well as a number of WD proprietary technologies, including AllFrame 4K cache policy management and firmware enhancements to optimize data flows during playback and writing. All WD Purple drives can work with up to 64 cameras and are rated for a 180 TB/year workload. In addition, high-capacity WD Purple HDDs are optimized for operation in NVRs and DVRs with more than eight drives and support time-limited error recovery technology (TLER), which prevents drive fallout caused by extended HDD error recovery processes.

Western Digital claims that the new WD Purple 10 TB is compatible with new and existing video surveillance systems (including chassis, chipsets, etc.) and thus can be used for new and current deployments (except those that require drives with 512B/512e sectors – the new WD Purple only support 4Kn sectors). The manufacturer has already started to ship the new hard drives to its partners and they will be available shortly for $399.99.

While the addition of a 10 TB HDD into the WD Purple series is a significant event, the fact that Western Digital began to roll out 10 TB helium-filled hard drives with a 5400 RPM spindle speed is even more important (until recently, WD used to offer only 8 TB helium-filled 5K HDDs). With the introduction of a 10 TB product with a reduced spindle speed, Western Digital can launch WD Red and WD My Book hard drives of the same capacity in the coming weeks or months. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that recently Western Digital cut down the price of its WD Purple 8 TB HDD by 30% and it can now be acquired for $281.99 from Amazon.

Related Reading:

Western Digital Expands Purple Lineup with a 10 TB Helium-Filled HDD
  • Comments are Closed

Western Digital Expands Purple Lineup with a 10 TB Helium-Filled HDD

Western Digital has expanded its Purple lineup of hard drives, aimed at video surveillance applications, with a 10 TB helium-filled HDD. The drive is optimized for write-intensive workloads and supports various technologies that minimize the number of potential errors due to the high-number of incoming data streams. The new WD Purple is also the company’s first 10 TB HDD with a 5400 RPM spindle speed and a large cache.

The WD Purple 10 TB drive (WD100PURZ) is based on the HelioSeal platform featuring seven PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) platters with ~1.4 TB capacity apiece, which it inherited from last year’s top-of-the-range HDDs. The increased areal density of the platters allowed the hard drive to increase its sustained transfer speed from host to drive to 210 MB/s, or by ~18% compared to the previous-generation helium-sealed WD Purple 8 TB HDD (WD80PUZX, 178 MB/s). This is at the same 5400 RPM spindle speed and at a slightly lower power consumption (up to 6.2 W vs up to 6.4 W). Just like other hard drives with a 10 TB capacity, the new WD Purple is equipped with a 256 MB DRAM buffer, which may further increase the real-world performance of the HDD against its predecessors.

Comparison of Western Digital’s WD Purple HDDs
  WD100PURZ WD80PUZX WD60PURX WD50PURX
Capacity 10 TB 8 TB 6 TB 5 TB
RPM 5400 RPM
Interface SATA 6 Gbps
DRAM Cache 256 MB 128 MB 64 MB
Helium-Filling Yes No
Data Transfer Rate (host to/from drive) 210 MB/s 178 MB/s 170 MB/s 150 MB/s
MTBF unknown 1 million hours
Rated Workload (read and write) 180 TB/year
Acoustics (Seek) 29 dBA 26 dBA
Power Consumption Sequential read/write 6.2 W 6.4 W 5.3 W
Idle 5 W 5.7 W 4.9 W
Sleep 0.5 W 0.7 W 0.4 W
Warranty 3 Years
Price (as of April 2017) $399.99 $281.99 $214 $200
$0.04 per GB $0.035 per GB $0.035 per GB $0.04 per GB
25 GB per $ 28.39 GB per $ 28.03 GB per $ 25 GB per $

Since the WD Purple hard drives are purpose-built for video surveillance applications, they support the ATA streaming extension of the SATA standard as well as a number of WD proprietary technologies, including AllFrame 4K cache policy management and firmware enhancements to optimize data flows during playback and writing. All WD Purple drives can work with up to 64 cameras and are rated for a 180 TB/year workload. In addition, high-capacity WD Purple HDDs are optimized for operation in NVRs and DVRs with more than eight drives and support time-limited error recovery technology (TLER), which prevents drive fallout caused by extended HDD error recovery processes.

Western Digital claims that the new WD Purple 10 TB is compatible with new and existing video surveillance systems (including chassis, chipsets, etc.) and thus can be used for new and current deployments (except those that require drives with 512B/512e sectors – the new WD Purple only support 4Kn sectors). The manufacturer has already started to ship the new hard drives to its partners and they will be available shortly for $399.99.

While the addition of a 10 TB HDD into the WD Purple series is a significant event, the fact that Western Digital began to roll out 10 TB helium-filled hard drives with a 5400 RPM spindle speed is even more important (until recently, WD used to offer only 8 TB helium-filled 5K HDDs). With the introduction of a 10 TB product with a reduced spindle speed, Western Digital can launch WD Red and WD My Book hard drives of the same capacity in the coming weeks or months. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that recently Western Digital cut down the price of its WD Purple 8 TB HDD by 30% and it can now be acquired for $281.99 from Amazon.

Related Reading:

GIGABYTE Lists GA-J3455N-D3H: Apollo Lake with COM, LPT, PS/2, D-Sub and PCI
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GIGABYTE Lists GA-J3455N-D3H: Apollo Lake with COM, LPT, PS/2, D-Sub and PCI

GIGABYTE has added its first Intel Apollo Lake-based desktop motherboard to its product list. The platform is designed primarily for low-power entry-level PCs, but the manufacturer decided to tailor its J3455N-D3H also for customers who need various legacy I/O technologies, indicating that this board was perhaps orignally designed for a specific customer but is now being released to the wider public. The mainboard is equipped with a host of older interfaces, including COM, LPT, PS/2, D-Sub and PCI.

Just like the name suggests, the GIGABYTE GA-J3455N-D3H is based on the the Intel Celeron J3455 processor (four Goldmont cores clocked at 1.5/2.3 GHz, 2 MB cache, dual-channel DRAM controller, HD Graphics 500, 10W TDP) that feature Intel’s ninth-generation graphics architecture (Gen9) as well as a refined media playback engine with hardware-accelerated playback of 4K video encoded using HEVC and VP9 codecs. The Mini-ITX motherboard is equipped with two DDR3L SO-DIMM slots (supporting up to 16 GB of DDR3L-1866), two Realtek GbE controllers, four SATA connectors (two controlled by the ASMedia ASM1061), one HDMI 1.4 output (up to 3840×2160 at 30 Hz), a connector for a TPM module, USB 3.0 headers (additional USB 2.0 ports are supported using the internal header and a Genesys Logic USB 2.0 hub) and so on.

In addition to the aforementioned regular I/O capabilities of a modern PC, the GIGABYTE GA-J3455N-D3H also features a number of legacy interfaces. The latter includes two COM ports, an LPT port header, PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse, a D-Sub output for displays, as well as a PCI slot for various add-on cards (and such cards may carry additional legacy interfaces, such as PATA, etc.). While the presence of the connectors makes the motherboard a viable candidate for a system running legacy applications, it should be noted that Intel’s Apollo Lake is not supported by Windows 7, 8, Vista or XP. Windows 10 does support legacy hardware, including COM, PCI and other interfaces, but the problem is those old software applications that use COM ports or PCI cards might not work in Windows 10, or require VMs and abstraction to do so. Therefore, to use them, one will need to install Windows 7 or XP on a virtual machine, which is not always convenient. Failing this, a Linux distribution might be a preferred option.

GIGABYTE’s Intel Apollo Lake Motherboard
  GA-J3455N-D3H
CPU Intel Celeron J3455
4C/4T Goldmont
1.5 – 2.3 GHz
2MB cache
10 W TDP
Graphics HD Graphics 500
12 EUs
250 – 750 MHz
PCH Integrated into CPU
Memory 2 GB DDR3L-1866 pre-installed
Two SO-DIMM slots,
up to 16 GB of DDR3L-1866
Ethernet 2 × Realtek GbE controllers
Display Outputs D-Sub (implementation unclear)
HDMI 1.4
Storage 2 × SATA 6 Gbps (SoC)
2 × SATA 6 Gbps (ASM1061)
Audio Realtek ALC887
7.1 channel audio
USB 2 × USB 3.0 Type-A
2 × USB 2.0
Other I/O 2 × COM ports
LPT internal header
2 × PS/2
PCI
Form-Factor Mini-ITX
OS Windows 10
Detailed Specifications Link

While the GA-J3455N-D3H motherboard is heading to retail, the presence of two GbE ports indicates that GIGABYTE either plans to offer the platform to corporate customers, or is already shipping it to interested parties. If the latter is the case, it looks like GIGABYTE has clients who need more or less modern low-cost PCs with legacy interfaces in their corporate networks. It’s always easier to replace a $500 PC connected to a $500k machine than to replace the machine, after all.

GIGABYTE has not announced MSRP of its J3455N-D3H motherboard or its actual release date. Keeping in mind that the COM, PS/2 and LPT controller, the additional SATA controller as well as a PCIe-to-PCI bridge all cost money, we expect GIGABYTE’s Apollo Lake-based platform to cost more than the base Apollo Lake solutions available.

Related Reading:

GIGABYTE Lists GA-J3455N-D3H: Apollo Lake with COM, LPT, PS/2, D-Sub and PCI
  • Comments are Closed

GIGABYTE Lists GA-J3455N-D3H: Apollo Lake with COM, LPT, PS/2, D-Sub and PCI

GIGABYTE has added its first Intel Apollo Lake-based desktop motherboard to its product list. The platform is designed primarily for low-power entry-level PCs, but the manufacturer decided to tailor its J3455N-D3H also for customers who need various legacy I/O technologies, indicating that this board was perhaps orignally designed for a specific customer but is now being released to the wider public. The mainboard is equipped with a host of older interfaces, including COM, LPT, PS/2, D-Sub and PCI.

Just like the name suggests, the GIGABYTE GA-J3455N-D3H is based on the the Intel Celeron J3455 processor (four Goldmont cores clocked at 1.5/2.3 GHz, 2 MB cache, dual-channel DRAM controller, HD Graphics 500, 10W TDP) that feature Intel’s ninth-generation graphics architecture (Gen9) as well as a refined media playback engine with hardware-accelerated playback of 4K video encoded using HEVC and VP9 codecs. The Mini-ITX motherboard is equipped with two DDR3L SO-DIMM slots (supporting up to 16 GB of DDR3L-1866), two Realtek GbE controllers, four SATA connectors (two controlled by the ASMedia ASM1061), one HDMI 1.4 output (up to 3840×2160 at 30 Hz), a connector for a TPM module, USB 3.0 headers (additional USB 2.0 ports are supported using the internal header and a Genesys Logic USB 2.0 hub) and so on.

In addition to the aforementioned regular I/O capabilities of a modern PC, the GIGABYTE GA-J3455N-D3H also features a number of legacy interfaces. The latter includes two COM ports, an LPT port header, PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse, a D-Sub output for displays, as well as a PCI slot for various add-on cards (and such cards may carry additional legacy interfaces, such as PATA, etc.). While the presence of the connectors makes the motherboard a viable candidate for a system running legacy applications, it should be noted that Intel’s Apollo Lake is not supported by Windows 7, 8, Vista or XP. Windows 10 does support legacy hardware, including COM, PCI and other interfaces, but the problem is those old software applications that use COM ports or PCI cards might not work in Windows 10, or require VMs and abstraction to do so. Therefore, to use them, one will need to install Windows 7 or XP on a virtual machine, which is not always convenient. Failing this, a Linux distribution might be a preferred option.

GIGABYTE’s Intel Apollo Lake Motherboard
  GA-J3455N-D3H
CPU Intel Celeron J3455
4C/4T Goldmont
1.5 – 2.3 GHz
2MB cache
10 W TDP
Graphics HD Graphics 500
12 EUs
250 – 750 MHz
PCH Integrated into CPU
Memory 2 GB DDR3L-1866 pre-installed
Two SO-DIMM slots,
up to 16 GB of DDR3L-1866
Ethernet 2 × Realtek GbE controllers
Display Outputs D-Sub (implementation unclear)
HDMI 1.4
Storage 2 × SATA 6 Gbps (SoC)
2 × SATA 6 Gbps (ASM1061)
Audio Realtek ALC887
7.1 channel audio
USB 2 × USB 3.0 Type-A
2 × USB 2.0
Other I/O 2 × COM ports
LPT internal header
2 × PS/2
PCI
Form-Factor Mini-ITX
OS Windows 10
Detailed Specifications Link

While the GA-J3455N-D3H motherboard is heading to retail, the presence of two GbE ports indicates that GIGABYTE either plans to offer the platform to corporate customers, or is already shipping it to interested parties. If the latter is the case, it looks like GIGABYTE has clients who need more or less modern low-cost PCs with legacy interfaces in their corporate networks. It’s always easier to replace a $500 PC connected to a $500k machine than to replace the machine, after all.

GIGABYTE has not announced MSRP of its J3455N-D3H motherboard or its actual release date. Keeping in mind that the COM, PS/2 and LPT controller, the additional SATA controller as well as a PCIe-to-PCI bridge all cost money, we expect GIGABYTE’s Apollo Lake-based platform to cost more than the base Apollo Lake solutions available.

Related Reading: