Seagate today introduced its Constellation family of new enterprise storage solutions for Tier 2 nearline storage applications.

The two new drive models, the 2.5-inch Constellation and the 3.5-inch Constellation ES hard drives, include a combination of features that enable high capacities, increased power efficiency, reliability, and data security. Both drives also include PowerChoice from Seagate, which decreases power consumption by up to 54% for record power savings in enterprise environments.

The Constellation 2.5-inch hard drive is offered in capacities of 160GB and 500GB with both 3 Gbps SATA and new SAS 2.0 interface running at 6Gb/s speeds. The Constellation family will begin shipping this quarter.

The 3.5-inch Constellation ES hard drive will be available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities with a SAS interface as well as a SATA version. As the world?s only 7200-rpm 3.5-inch hard drive providing up to 2TB of storage, the Constellation ES hard drives are ideal for 3.5-inch based external storage architectures. The Constellation ES hard drive will ship in calendar Q3.

With Seagate?s PowerChoice technology, both Constellation hard drive models deliver the highest power-reduction savings ever offered in an enterprise-class HDD. In addition, the Constellation family of drives are rated at a full 1.2 million hours MTBF.

The drives are also offered with optional self-encrypting drive (SED) technology. SED technology makes drive retirement and disposal easy by eliminating the need for the numerous manual processes involved which are often incomplete, complex, expensive, or prone to error. For critical information that must remain secure, and because all systems are eventually retired, whether being relocated, re-purposed, or disposed of, the information on a Constellation SED hard drive remains AES-safe.