Skip to main content
Sign Out
Welcome to Dell
My Account
  • Place orders quickly and easily
  • View orders and track your shipping status
  • Enjoy members-only rewards and discounts
  • Create and access a list of your products
Sign In Create an Account Dell Financial Services Premier Sign In Partner Program Sign In
Contact Us
Your Dell.com Carts
  1. USA
  2. Products
  3. Help Me Choose: Hard Drives and Solid-State Drives
Windows I Get to know Windows 11

Intel® Core™ Processors

Learn More about Intel

Intel® Core™

Help Me Choose: Hard Drives and Solid-State Drives

As an enterprise systems user, you are most concerned about the security of your data and the reliability of the medium holding that data.

Dell puts its Enterprise Hard Drive and Solid State Drive offerings through a rigorous validation process before they are ever considered as additions to our line of server and storage systems. Dell has stringent drive specifications for performance, duty cycles, Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and rotational vibration, which are all necessary for an Enterprise-level environment .These types of exacting specifications must be met before we will make them available for customer usage.

Performance and Cost varies among the different HDD and SSD offerings. Please refer to the individual tabs below to assess the impacts in your applications.

Server hard drive

Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and Solid State Drives (SSD) come in several varieties designed to address differing enterprise customer needs. These include:

Solid State SAS, Value SAS and SATA Drives: Fast storage medium for random IO

10K & 15K SAS Hard Drives: Performance and availability for performance optimized applications

7.2K SAS & SATA Hard Drives: High capacity and exceptional $/GB for capacity optimized applications

Entry Drives: Least expensive drives used in applications where low usage and limited total number of drives are applicable. Due to restrictions on use, these drives are available in a small number of systems and configurations.

Solid State SAS, Value SAS and SATA Drives

Fast storage medium for random IO

10K & 15K SAS Hard Drives

Performance and availability for performance optimized applications

7.2K SAS & SATA Hard Drives

High capacity and exceptional $/GB for capacity optimized applications

Entry Drives

Least expensive drives used in applications where low usage and limited total number of drives are applicable. Due to restrictions on use, these drives are available in a small number of systems and configurations.

HDD Recommendations

Hard Disk Drives for Dell Enterprise server and storage products are available in several different types, including Mission Critical (10K & 15K) Performance Optimized, Business Critical (7.2K) Capacity Optimized.

Generally speaking, the Mission Critical (MC) or Performance Optimized drives (10K and 15K SAS) are used in those application requiring the highest reliability and performance and are only available in the 2.5” small form factor. Business Critical (BC) or Capacity Optimized drives (7.2K Nearline SAS and SATA) may provide much higher capacities, but lower reliability and performance when compared to Mission Critical. They are available in both 2.5” small form factor and 3.5” large form factor. There is a fundamental transition occurring in the HDD industry. The standard size of a basic unit of data (a sector on the drive) is changing from 512 bytes to 4K bytes. Fortunately there are ways to maintain the 512 byte sector size, so that both are available into the future. Below is information on that addition and what a user should consider:



  • Beginning in late 2009, accelerating in 2010, and hitting mainstream in 2011 for client-based HDDs, hard drive companies began migrating away from the legacy sector size of 512 bytes to a larger, more efficient sector size of 4,096 bytes, generally referred to as 4K sectors, and now referenced as Advanced Format by IDEMA (The International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association). Enterprise HDDs are also moving to embrace this format, but will be slower to adopt. The first Advanced Format enterprise HDD became available in 2012, with a limited set in 2013 and a more general distribution in 2014 and beyond.
  • Customers have been using applications and operating systems / file systems built on 512 bytes (512n) for decades. This move to 4K byte sector size will impact those software stacks and will result in additional validation work as well as possible structural changes to software as the transition is made. New, higher capacity drives will need to be created in this 4K format. Recognizing that customers may be reluctant to make a change like this quickly, an emulation model of these drives has been created – the drive is built from 4K technology, but allows for 512 byte addressing and transfer at the interface. These drives are known as 512e.
  • Below is a table describing these concepts:

Format type Bytes per sector value Bytes per physical sector value
512n 512 512
512e 512 4,096
4Kn 4,096 4,096

  • There are many aspects of modern computing systems that continue to assume that sectors are always 512 bytes. The Dell HDD offering contains 512n drives, 512e drives, and drives in the 4Kn format. The 512n format is available for customers interested in maintaining the same drive type they have used over time. The 512e drives provide a 512 byte sector size for those capacities not available in 512n. The 4Kn formatted drives are for those customers interested in adopting the latest, highest capacity HDDs and for those getting prepared for the future direction of the HDD industry. Note that 512 byte/sector addressing will continue as a recognized and supported format for many years into the future. The share of drives formatted as 4Kn could continue to remain small and the newest, highest capacity HDDs now and on the roadmap will also be available in 512e sector format.

Enhanced Performance 512e HDD as New Offering in 13G & 14G

In late April 2017, Dell has introduced a new 2.5” form factor 900GB 15K 512e 12Gbps SAS HDD with Enhanced Cache to boost Read performance in addition to the Advance Write Cache that comes standard in this family. TurboBoostTM (trademark of Seagate Inc) Enhanced Cache was Seagate’s major performance enhancement to standard enterprise performance HDD design (10K & 15K RPM rotational speed). This new 512e drive integrates small amount of eMLC NAND as cache, reducing latencies for significantly faster, predictable response times. Rather than constructing storage solutions with a mixture of discrete HDDs and SSDs, TurboBoost can often provide the best of both worlds. At the very least, TurboBoost can help to improve general work productivity through greatly improved availability of hot data (the data most frequently sought by the host) and greatly reduced IOPS response time.
  • Hot data gets copied from magnetic media into NAND cache. Subsequent requests for this data by the host can then be fulfilled far faster from flash memory than from rotating magnetic platter (media/disk). As the cache fills up, the least hot files will retire from NAND to make room for more data while the original files remain accessible from the disk media if needed. With TurboBoost technology, the seek and rotational latency part of a conventional drive’s read process often vanish, because if data resides in NAND, there is no spinning media to navigate.

Enhanced cache HDD benefits vary by applications - the greater the workload, the more effective they are. Ideal for building new high-performance servers, manage multiple transactions quickly, or drop-in replacements as the feature is active full time and does not require any enablement from host. 
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
  • Online Transaction Processing (OLTP)
  • Webservers
  • Small Database Query
  • Exchange Workloads
  • Random Read/Write Tasks

For more detail on sample performance results per drive capacity, please view this comparison document.

SSD Recommendations

Below are the categories of enterprise SSDs Dell EMC offers:

Write Intensive (WI)
50/50 read/write workloads with highest endurance. This is generally recommended for running HPC, Database logging, and caching workloads.

Mix Use (MU)
70/30 read/write workloads with medium endurance. This is generally recommended for running e-mail/messaging, OLTP, and E-commerce workloads.

Read Intensive (RI)
90/10 read/write workloads with lower endurance. This is generally recommended for running database warehousing, media streaming, and VOD workloads.

Boot Optimized (Boot)
Lowest cost/small capacity SSDs designed to be used as a boot device in servers. Low endurance. Appropriate for all workloads.

Host Interface
Dell EMC enterprise SSDs support the following options:

SATA SSD
SATA SSDs are based on the industry standard SATA interface. SATA SSDs provide reasonable performance for enterprise applications where performance is not paramount but minimizing cost is.

Value SAS SSD
Developed by Toshiba Memory Corporation, value SAS is a new class of SAS SSD that leverages the PowerEdge SAS server infrastructure to deliver better performance, latency, and reliability than SATA SSDs, at a comparable price. These drives are lower cost and have lower performance than standard SAS SSDs, positioning their performance characteristics between SATA and standard SAS. Value SAS is an easy replacement for SATA SSDs and provide greater value for most enterprise applications.

SAS SSD
SAS SSDs are based on the industry standard SAS interface. SAS SSDs combine superior reliability, data integrity, and data fail recovery making them better than both SATA SSD and Value SAS SSD for applications requiring the highest performance using SAS/SATA drives. Price is higher, but if performance is a strong requirement, then standard SAS SSDs is warranted.

PCIe SSD
The Dell EMC PowerEdge Express Flash PCIe SSD is a high performance solid state storage device that enables IOPS performance of up to 2000X more than conventional rotating hard drives.

Compare Products (0)
Hide

Add the products you would like to compare, and quickly determine which is best for your needs.

Compare Products
Compare
0

Footnotes

* Returns: The 30-day return period is calculated from invoice date. Exceptions to Dell's standard return policy still apply, and certain products are not eligible for return at any time. See dell.com/returnpolicy.

* Offers subject to change, not combinable with all other offers, while supplies last. Dell may impose a purchase quantity limit (for example, 5 units per order). Taxes, shipping, and other fees apply. Free shipping offer valid only in Continental U.S. (excludes Alaska and P.O. Box addresses). Offer not valid for Resellers. Dell reserves the right to cancel orders arising from pricing or other errors.

* Rewards 3% back excludes taxes and shipping. Rewards are issued to your online Dell Rewards Account (available via your Dell.com My Account) typically within 30 business days after your order’s ship date. Rewards expire in 90 days (except where prohibited by law). “Current rewards balance” amount may not reflect the most recent transactions. Check Dell.com My Account for your most up-to-date reward balance. Total rewards earned may not exceed $2,000 within a 3-month period. Outlet purchases do not qualify for rewards. Expedited Delivery not available on certain TVs, monitors, batteries and adapters, and is available in Continental (except Alaska) U.S. only. Other exceptions apply. Not valid for resellers and/or online auctions. Offers and rewards subject to change without notice, not combinable with all other offers. See Dell.com/rewardsfaq. $50 in bonus rewards for Dell Rewards Members who open a new Dell Preferred Account (DPA), or Dell Business Credit (DBC) account on or after 8/10/2022. $50 bonus rewards typically issued within 30 business days after DPA or DBC open date.

Dell Coupon Offer: Offer valid 12/9/2022 - 1/5/2023 7:00AM CST. Coupon is valid with select other offers but not with other coupons. Coupon is valid on select order codes. One-time use only. Offer does not apply to, and is not available with, systems or items purchased through refurbished items or spare parts. Purchase limit of one item per order. Not valid for resellers and/or online auctions. Dell reserves the right to cancel orders arising from pricing or other errors.

^DELL PREFERRED ACCOUNT (DPA): Offered to U.S. residents by WebBank, who determines qualifications for and terms of credit. Taxes, shipping, and other charges are extra and vary. Your Minimum Payment Due is the greater of either $20 or 3% of the New Balance shown on your billing statement (excluding any balance on a Planned Payment Purchase prior to its expiration date) rounded up to the next dollar, plus any Monthly Planned Payment Due, plus the sum of all past due amounts. Minimum Interest Charge is $2.00. Rates range from 20.24% - 29.99% variable APR, as of 3/24/2023, depending on creditworthiness. Dell and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Six- and twelve-months special financing offers have different minimum purchase requirements. See Dell.com/nointerestdisclosures for important financing details.

^DELL BUSINESS CREDIT (DBC): Offered to business customers by WebBank, who determines qualifications for and terms of credit. Taxes, shipping and other charges are extra and vary. The Total Minimum Payment Due is the greater of either $20 or 3% of the New Balance shown on the statement rounded up to the next dollar, plus all past due amounts. Dell and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Three-month special financing is available on select purchases (a minimum purchase may be required). See Dell.com/DBCDisclosures for full promotional conditions.

Estimated value is Dell’s estimate of product value based on industry data, including the prices at which third-party retailers have offered or valued the same or comparable products, in its most recent survey of major online and/or off-line retailers. Third-party retailer data may not be based on actual sales.

PAYPAL
**Subscription products are not eligible for Pay in 4

*Expedited Delivery: * Expedited Delivery not available on certain TVs, monitors, batteries and adapters, and is available in Continental (except Alaska) U.S. only. Other exceptions apply. Not valid for resellers and/or online auctions. Offers subject to change, not combinable with all other offers. See Dell.com/rewardsfaq.

* Accidental Damage Service excludes theft, loss, and damage due to fire, flood or other acts of nature, or intentional damage. Customer must return damaged unit. Limit of 1 qualified incident per contract year. See dell.com/servicecontracts.