With the increasing focus on Green IT, demand is growing for suitable tools that help IT decision makers weigh their energy reduction goals against the performance requirements of their organization. The Storage Performance Council (SPC) is one organization working to meet that demand. Recently, the SPC announced the SPC-1/E Benchmark, its second storage performance benchmark to include energy extensions. Two SPC-1/E results for the Xiotech Emprise 5000 have been released to coincide with the introduction of the new benchmark. Xiotech’s two test configurations were identical except for the disk technology used. The first test used 146 GB 15K RPM disk drives while the second used higher capacity, but slower, 600 GB 10K RPM Seagate drives. 

Xiotech’s approach to this new benchmark provides interesting insight into the performance and energy-efficiency tradeoffs of deploying the higher-capacity/lower-performance 10K rpm drives versus the higher-performance/lower-capacity 15K rpm drives. In this report, Ideas International (IDEAS) analyzes the outcomes of the two test results over a series of metrics to help users understand which disk technology may be better suited to their needs.