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Tuesday, July 19th, 2016
- Desktop computing, with the BarraCuda Pro
- NAS units (1 to 8-bay) with the IronWolf series
- Surveillance (NVRs and DVRs) with the SkyHawk series
- Photos: 15.6 GB collection of 4320 photos (RAW as well as JPEGs) in 61 sub-folders
- Videos: 16.1 GB collection of 244 videos (MP4 as well as MOVs) in 6 sub-folders
- BR: 10.7 GB Blu-ray folder structure of the IDT Benchmark Blu-ray (the same that we use in our robocopy tests for NAS systems)
- Adobe Photoshop (Light)
- Adobe Photoshop (Heavy)
- Adobe After Effects
- Adobe Illustrator
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| 8:00a | Seagate's New 'Guardian Series' Portfolio Brings 10TB Helium HDDs to Consumers
Our recent interview with Seagate's CTO, Mark Re, gave us an idea about of the future of the hard drive market. As late as Q1 2016, Seagate had considered helium-based drives suitable for high-end applications only. However, the fast-changing competitive landscape, as well as changes in consumer requirements, have made it necessary for Seagate to re-evaluate the options. Today, the Guardian Series, consisting of a portfolio of 10TB helium-based drives, is being launched for various segments in the mainstream consumer market. Seagate launched a 10TB helium drive for enterprise applications back in April. The technology is now making its way into 10TB drives for three different market segments: One of the important aspects to note here is that only the 10TB drives are helium-based. All the drives being launched today are 7200 RPM drives and use traditional perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology. BarraCuda Pro and FireCudaThe BarraCuda series also integrates a multi-tier cache, which involves drive-based management of various storage media on the disk (DRAM, flash and magnetic platters). The intent is obviously to improve responsiveness and, to an extent, also lower power consumption.
In the Compute market, Seagate is also bringing out a new SSHD (SSD + HDD hybrid) under the FireCuda SSHD branding (now, in both 2.5" and 3.5" form factors). IronWolfThe IronWolf series is focused on hard drives for the NAS segment, currently served by vendors such as Synology and QNAP. One of the most interesting aspects of the IronWolf series is the integration of a rotational vibration sensor in the high-capacity models. This has traditionally been restricted to enterprise NAS drives, and it is a welcome feature. Seagate markets their NAS-optimized firmware under the AgileArray moniker. It includes drive balancing features (vibration dampening hardware control and RV sensor handling) as well as RAID-related features such as TLER (time-limited error recovery) configurations to avoid drives erroneously dropping out of arrays etc. It also includes specific power management features such as optimized spin-down / standby / sleep entry. IronWolf is rated for workloads of up to 180TB/yr. Higher workload options include the Enterprise NAS HDD (300TB/yr) and the Enterprise Capacity HDD (550TB/yr)
IronWolf drives also come with the optional Seagate Rescue data recovery service (this is retained from the previous NAS HDD / Enterprise NAS HDD marketing feature set). SkyHawkThe final market segment that Seagate is addressing today is storage for surveillance / IP camera / NVR (networked video recorder) applications. This segment is forecast for huge growth, bringing high-capacity drives into the forefront. The SkyHawk series will be addressing this market with firmware optimized for video stream recording (ATA streaming extensions support for up to 64HD cameras) and 24x7 operation. The workload rating is similar to the IronWolf series at 180TB/yr. The firmware also enables quick time-to-record when coming out of idle - something essential for scenarios where recording is triggered only when motion is detected. Helium-based drives also enable low power consumption and lowered heat dissipation requirements. The SkyHawk drives also come with RV sensors and the series is supported by Seagate Rescue for data recovery. For large-scale surveillance storage requirements (say, 100+ cameras), Seagate suggests the Enterprise Capacity HDDs with a 550TB/yr workload rating instead. Prices and AvailabilityThe BarraCuda Pro carries a 5-year warranty, with the 10TB drive having an MSRP of $535. The IronWolf and SkyHawk drives carry 3-year warranties, with the 10TB drives carrying MSRPs of $470 and $460 respectively. Seagate seemed to be late to the helium game, with both HGST and Western Digital coming out with a number of helium-based drives for different applications over the last couple of years. However, with the introduction of the Guardian series, Seagate has wrested the initiative by targeting multiple market segments. In particular, targeting the surveillance market that is forecast for huge growth will help Seagate in achieving economies of scale. That will, in turn, should make the price of drives such as the BarraCuda Pro 10TB more palatable to the average consumer.
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| 8:01a | Seagate BarraCuda Pro 10TB Helium HDD Capsule Review
Seagate has introduced a trio of 10TB hard drive models today, as part of the launch of their new Guardian series. There are three main parts to the series: BarraCuda Pro, IronWolf and SkyHawk, all focusing on slightly different markets and available in capacities up to 10TB. The top 10TB models from each segment are based on helium technology, which we have covered in detail in multiple articles. We will be taking a look at the NAS-focused IronWolf series next month, but, a quick look at the performance and features of the BarraCuda Pro is the focus of this capsule review. Introduction and Testing MethodologyThe Seagate BarraCuda Pro 10TB is a 7200RPM SATAIII (6 Gbps) hard drive based on helium technology with a 256MB DRAM cache. According to Seagate, it typically draws around 6.8W, making it one of the most power efficient 3.5" hard drives in the market. It targets creative professionals with high-performance desktops, home servers and/or direct-attached storage units. It is meant for 24x7 usage (unlike traditional desktop-class hard drives) and carries a workload rating of 300TB/year, backed by a 5-year warranty. The various aspects of the drive are summarized in the table below.
A high-level overview of the various supported SATA features is provided by HD Tune Pro, and shows support for common mechanical features such as NCQ.
The main focus of our evaluation is the performance of the HDD as an internal disk drive in a PC. Towards this, we used one of the SATA 6 Gbps ports off the PCH in the testbed outlined below.
Performance - Raw DrivesHD Tune Pro 5.50 was used to run a number of tests on the unformatted drive. The gallery below presents some interesting numbers for various access types, and how the location of the data in the platter can affect the performance. Sustained sequential reads can reach a maximum of 258 MBps, but it can also drop down to as low as 110 MBps. Sequential writes exhibit similar numbers. Random reads get around 65 IOPS, while writes come between 56 IOPS and 264 IOPS, depending on the transfer size. DAS BenchmarksThe BarraCuda Pro was connected to a 6 Gbps SATA port off the PCH in our DAS testbed. After formatting in NTFS, it was subject to our DAS test suite. Consumers opting for drives such as the 10TB Seagate BarraCuda Pro typically need high-capacity local storage for holding and editing / processing large-sized multimedia files. Prior to taking a look at the real-life benchmarks, we first check what CrystalDiskMark has to report for the drive.
In order to tackle the real-life use-case of transferring large amounts of data back and forth from the drive, we created three test folders with the following characteristics:
While processing our DAS suite, we also recorded the instantaneous transfer rates and temperature of the drive. Compared to typical disk drives, the write transfers show higher instantaneous speeds due to a combination of the firmware and the 256 MB cache inside the drive. However, sustained write rates are comparable to other high-capacity drives when the cache is excausted. The temperature of the unit at the end of the transfers (more than 250GB of traffic) was less than 35C, pointing to the power-efficiency of the platform.
For the use-case involving editing of multimedia files directly off the disk, we take advantage of PCMark 8's storage benchmark. The storage workload is a good example of a user workload, involving games as well as multimedia editing applications. The command line version allows us to cherry-pick storage traces to run on a target drive. We chose the following traces. Usually, PCMark 8 reports time to complete the trace, but the detailed log report has the read and write bandwidth figures which we present in our performance graphs. Note that the bandwidth number reported in the results don't involve idle time compression. Results might appear low, but that is part of the workload characteristic.
Performance with a USB 3.0 BridgeSeagate suggests that the BarraCuda Pro 10TB is suitable for use in direct-attached storage systems. We put the drive behind an Inatek USB 3.0 to SATA adaptor (using the ASMedia ASM1153E chipset) and processed the CrystalDiskMark benchmark.
During the benchmark process, we also noted the power consumed by the adaptor at the wall. We found that the combination could draw up to 12W during the spin-up of the hard drive. With no disk traffic, the power consumption dropped down to 3.4W. During the benchmarking process itself, the power consumption at the wall ranged between 6W and 8W. Concluding RemarksComing to the business end of the review, it can be clearly seen that the BarraCuda Pro 10TB is a unique product in the market. It is not often that we see a leading capacity 'desktop-class' hard drive rated for 24x7 operation or workload ratings of 300TB/year. To top it all, Seagate is even throwing in a 5-year warranty. The only disappointing aspects are the load/unload cycle rating and the MTBF - given the positioning of the product, it could have been closer to that of the enterprise drives. In our evaluation, the drive successfully met all of Seagate's claims. It is pleasing to see helium make its appearance in mass-market consumer devices. Hopefully, economies of scale should help the current MSRPs to go further down in the future. There is a price to pay for all of the above aspects, though. The MSRP of the BarraCuda Pro 10TB is $535, and it is quite a bit more than that of the other 10TB drives being launched by Seagate today - the SkyHawk surveillance drive ($460) and the IronWolf NAS drive ($470). Seagate's Enterprise 10TB Helium drive, by comparison, is currently on Amazon for $600. We will address these drives in due course in order to accurately map Seagate's performance roadmap. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:00a | Meizu MX6 Launched: 10-core Helio X20, 5.5-inch Full HD, ¥1999
The launch cadence for Meizu smartphones has been rather speedy as of late. Already this year we’ve seen the introduction of the m3, the m3 Note, the Pro 6, and at the tail-end of last year we had the Pro 5 as well. This week sees the launch of the MX6, an update to the MX5, using MediaTek’s 10-core Helio X20 (MT6797) SoC.
Alongside the SoC, the MX6 uses a Full HD (1920x1080) display measuring 5.5 inches, 4GB of LPDDR3 memory with 32GB of storage, a 3060 mAh battery, a fingerprint sensor, a USB Type-C connector and Android 6.0 with Meizu’s Flyme UI. While there is no microSD card slot, the MX6 will offer Dual-SIM capabilities and uses a reported ‘24W’ peak charging mode to fully charge in 75 minutes or a 10 minute charge should give a half day of battery (though Meizu doesn’t specify if that’s a half ‘working day’ or actually 12 hours, probably the former given that the device is rated at 9 working hours on the website).
The rear camera is a 12MP Sony IMX386, with 1.25-micron pixels, phase-detection auto focus (PDAF), an f/2.0 lens and dual tone flash. While the MP count seems to have dropped from the MX5, the use of larger pixels to increase image clarity in low light, combined with PDAF, has its own advantages. The 5.5-inch TDDI display according to the spec sheets is good for 1500:1 contrast ratio, 85% NTSC and a peak brightness of 500 nits – it’s worth noting that Meizu’s landing page states ‘500 cd/m2 Peak’ but the specification sheet says ‘450 cd/m2 typical’. The Cat 6 modem is supported by dual-band 802.11ac and BT 4.1, while the fingerprint sensor has a rated response time of 0.2 seconds. The 7.25mm unibody design features the microphone port on the bottom next to the USB Type-C, and dual microphones (one each end) with additional noise cancelling software filters.
The MX6 will launch in China for 1,999 yuan (~$298.51), with pre-orders taken from today for a shipping date of July 30th. Gray, silver, gold and rose gold colors will be available. There is no indication yet if the MX6 will be sold outside China or in capacities other than 32GB. Related Reading:July 2016: The Meizu m3 Note Review (with Redmi Note 3 for comparison) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9:45p | Microsoft Announces FY 2016 Q4 Results
Microsoft announced their fourth quarter results for their fiscal year 2016. For the quarter, Microsoft had revenues of $20.6 billion, which is a 7% decline compared to Q4 2015. Gross margin came in at 61.2%, down from over 66% a year ago. In their Q4 2015, Microsoft wrote down the majority of their Nokia acquisition, so take that into consideration against the rest of their results. Operating income for the quarter was $3.08 billion, as compared to an operating loss of $2.053 billion a year ago. Net income was $3.122 billion for the quarter, compared against a $3.195 billion net loss due to the write down at the same time last year. Earnings per share were $0.39, compared to a $0.40 loss per share last year.
For the full fiscal year, Microsoft had revenues of $85.32 billion, an operating income of $20.182 billion, and net income of $16.798 billion. Microsoft also released Non-GAAP results, which account for deferrals of Windows 10 revenue which is now deferred over the life of a device, as well as removing the restructuring charges, and other expenses. On a Non-GAAP basis, revenue was $22.6 billion for the quarter, up 2% year-over-year, and 5% in constant currency (CC). Operating income was $6.2 billion, which is down 3% year-over-year, or up 6% CC. Net income was $5.5 billion, up 8%, or 23% CC, and earnings per share were up 11% to $0.69, or up 27% CC. Microsoft breaks the company into three segments. Productivity and Business Processes includes Office, which includes both Office commercial and home, as well as Office 365 commercial and home. In addition, this segment includes Dynamics. The second segment is Intelligent Cloud, which includes Server, Azure, Enterprise Mobility, and Enterprise Services. The final segment is More Personal Computing, which includes Windows, devices, gaming, and search. Productivity and Business Processes grew revenue by 5% (8% CC) to $6.97 billion. Gross margin for this segment was $3.00 billion, down 5%. Breaking this down a bit further, Office commercial revenue was up 5% (9% CC), and Office 365 commercial seats were up 45% year-over-year. Office 365 commercial continues to have strong growth, at the expense of its traditional buy and use client. Office 365 revenue grew 54% (59% CC), while the non-cloud offering declined 12% (9% CC). The home side is also seeing good growth, with Office consumer growing revenue by 19% (18% CC) year-over-year. Office 365 consumer now has 23.1 million subscribers. The final piece of this segment is Dynamics, which saw a 6% (7% CC) gain in revenue compared to last year. The cloud offering here is also going strong, with CRM Online doubling in seats. Microsoft stated that they now have almost 10 million monthly paid seats for Dynamics, and four out of five new CRM customers choose the cloud version. Intelligent Cloud had revenues grow 7% (10% CC) to $6.71 billion for the quarter. Operating income was down 17% though, to $2.19 billion with higher operating expenses and acquisitions. Server and cloud services had revenue up 5% (8% CC), but it was Azure that saw the big gain again. Azure revenue grew 102% (108% CC) while the traditional server products stayed flat. In addition, Microsoft continues to see strong growth in their Azure premium services, with “triple digit” growth for the eight quarter in a row. Enterprise Mobility customers also nearly doubled to 33,000. Enterprise services was also up 12% (14% CC) with growth in their Premier Support Services. Finally, the More Personal Computing segment, which is still the largest segment by revenue, had revenues decline 4% (-2% CC) to $8.9 billion. Operating income in this segment was up significantly to $0.96 billion, which is a 59% gain compared to last year. Breaking down this segment, Windows OEM revenue for non-Pro grew by 27% year-over-year, which outpaced the consumer PC market. Microsoft attributes this to more premium devices being sold, which they get more revenue from than, for instance, a $199 HP Stream where Windows is no-cost. Windows OEM Pro grew 2%, which is attributed to a stabilization of the commercial PC market and more business devices sold with Pro. Windows volume licensing was up 3% (9% CC), and IP licensing revenue declined. Although not stated, I would attribute this to Microsoft making different deals with Android OEMs to install Microsoft services, rather than just a per-device charge. On the devices side, revenue was down 35%, but this is almost exclusively the phone unit which is now written off. Phone revenue was down 71% year-over-year. Surface revenue was up 9% driven by sales of Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book. Gaming revenue declined 9% (8% CC) with the discounted price of the Xbox One, and lower console sales. Xbox live monthly active users grew 33% to 49 million. The final piece of More Personal Computing is Search, which grew revenue 16% (17% CC) thanks to higher revenue per search, and higher search volume. Microsoft stated that over 40% of the search revenue in June was by devices running Windows 10, which helps explain their motivation to offer Windows 10 as a free upgrade for the past year.
So there’s a lot of data here, and not all of it will interest everyone, but Microsoft has continued to see strong growth by their cloud segments, and have transitioned well from a traditional software company to one that also offers the services that people want and expect. The cloud revenues continue to grow at a strong pace, and generally at the detriment of their traditional segments. Surface growth of 9% is decent as well, but let’s not forget that a year ago the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book didn’t even exist, but a 9% gain when the overall PC market is down being a good outcome. With the loss of the Lumia phone business, the negative revenue is still impacting the results, but should not for much longer. Windows 10 adoption has been strong, with over 350 million devices now running Windows 10. The first big update is coming about a year after the initial release, and we should have more coverage on that soon. Source: Microsoft Investor Relations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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