Toshiba AL14SX 900GB 15000RPM SAS eHDD Review

Bohs Hansen / 7 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

I could not find the drive listed anywhere at the time of review, A few German and a single Austrian webshop have it listed with a 3-week ETA and at a price from €441 to €499.

Conclusion

When you’re dealing with mission-critical data, then you need something special. Toshiba’s AL14SX series can easily be categorised as such. Not only does it pack the features, it also comes with an impressive performance and incredible low access time for a mechanical drive. Toshiba also added a power-loss protection which can flush cached data to the drives in case of a power failure.

There really isn’t much to say about the performance, except: Well done. The drive performs great and beats everything else we’ve tested by far. And that despite the smaller form factor. With such drives, you can create very dense storage environments with high-performing and reliable storage.

With multiple capacity options, all rated to the same performance, and various sector setups, there will be just the right drive for your setup within the AL14SX series.

On top of a good drive, you also get good support from specialised centres around the world. I had the pleasure to deal with the EU centre during this review, and it was a pleasure. A great support is as important as a great product, at least in my book.

Pros

Impressive performance
High-compatibility form factor
12Gbps SAS interface
15000 RPM spindle speed
Industry-leading 2ms latency

Cons

Availability (at the time of review)

“Toshiba’s AL14SX delivers an impressive performance within a small and highly compatible package. A solid choice for your mission-critical data.”