Seagate enters SSD market

Pulsar can store up to 200GB of data

Storage giant Seagate has announced its entry into the burgeoning market for solid state drives (SSDs) with the launch of Seagate Pulsar – the first in a new enterprise SSD family.

Pulsar uses single-level cell (SLC) technology to deliver up to 200GB, and is built in a 2.5in small form factor with a Sata interface, according to the firm.

Designed for enterprise blade and general server environments, the product has peak performance of up to 30,000 read IOPS and 25,000 write IOPS, 240MB/s sequential read and 200MB/s sequential write, said Seagate.

“Seagate is optimistic about the enterprise SSD opportunity and views the product category as enabling expansion of the overall storage market for both SSDs and HDDs,” said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president of sales, marketing, and product line management.

“Our strategy is to provide our customers with the exact storage device they need for any application, regardless of the component technology used."

Mosley added that Pulsar would be the first of many SSD releases from Seagate in the future.

The move comes as little surprise given that the latest Gartner figures for the enterprise SSD market predict unit growth to double and sales to reach $1bn (£613m) in 2010.

“Superior enterprise SSDs provide transformational capabilities when optimised in storage and server environments,” said Gartner research director Joseph Unsworth.