Enterprise-class versus Desktop-class Hard Drives

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Conclusion

As hard drives technology changes, customers have a choice of products to use in their

enterprise or desktop environment. It is important to properly balance the system requirements

with hard drive features and choose a hard drive to meet usage requirements. Hard drive

usage, reliability, and functionality can be optimized by choosing drives that meet the design

specifications demanded by their target implementation.

Hard drives are designed with a wide variety of features that can impact data integrity and

system uptime. Some hard drive manufactures may differentiate enterprise from desktop drives

by not testing certain enterprise-class features, validate the drives with different test criteria, or

disable enterprise-class features on a desktop class hard drives so they can market and price

them accordingly. Other manufacturers have different architectures and designs for the two

drive classes. It can be difficult to get detailed information and specifications on different drive

modes.

Intel does not recommend specific hard disk drive vendors or technology and feature

implementations, but we encourage you to contact the hard drive vendor of your choice to

discuss the hard drive and features best suited for your deployment application.

Check your applicable Intel

Server product THOL (Tested Hardware and Operating system List)

for drive compatibility with Intel

Server Products before making a hard drive purchase. Intel

Server Product THOLs can be found at: http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/

For more information, please contact your Intel representative.