Decyphering Seagate drive model numbers?

Posted by Stefan Lasiewski on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Stefan Lasiewski
Published on 2010-06-02T17:44:33Z Indexed on 2010/06/02 17:56 UTC
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I'm comparing Seagate's Enterprise and Desktop drives for a variety of old and new servers. These servers come from different generations, so options like size (73GB, 2TB) and interface (SATA vs SAS 3.0Gbps vs SAS 6Gbps vs SCSI Ultra320) are widely variable.

I'm trying to compare the sizes, speeds and interfaces, but I'm getting thrown off by different models. Also, their website is not the best. Does anyone know of a documented explanation of the Seagate model numbers? And is there a single spreadsheet which compares the features for all drives (or all 'Enterprise' drives?).

Seagate drives have model numbers like this:

I understand the model numbers read something like this:

  • ST - SOMETHING1 - SIZE - SOMETHING2 - INTERFACE

Where the fields mean something like this:

  • ST : For 'Seagate'? 'Seagate Technoligies'?
  • SOMETHING1 - This field has number, but I'm not sure what that represents.
  • SIZE - Size in Gigabytes. This is a number like '73' or '300' or '2000'
  • SOMETHING2 - This field also has a number, but I'm not sure what it means.
  • INTERFACE - This field seems to indicate the Interface. 'SS' means SAS, 'FC' means Fibre Channel, but I don't see how to distinguish between 6Gbps SAS and 3Gbps SAS, or different SATA or FC speeds.
  • I don't see a field which indicates the RPM (15K , 10K, 7.2K) etc. Is this part of the model number?

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