400-ASGV Dell 900GB 15K RPM SAS 12GBPS 512n HDD with tray

Dell 400-ASGV 900GB 15K RPM SAS 12Gbps Hard Drive

The Dell 400-ASGV 900GB SAS hard drive is a high-performance enterprise storage device engineered for demanding server environments. Designed specifically for Dell PowerEdge systems, this drive delivers exceptional speed, reliability, and scalability for mission-critical workloads.

General Specifications

• Manufacturer: Dell
• Part Number: 400-ASGV
• Device Type: Enterprise Hard Drive with Tray
• Form Factor: 2.5-inch Small Form Factor

Performance Specifications

• Spindle Speed: 15000 RPM for rapid data retrieval
• Interface: SAS 12Gbps for high-speed data transfer
• External Transfer Rate: Up to 1200 Mbps
• Cache Buffer: 256MB for enhanced read/write efficiency

Connectivity Features

• 1 x SAS 3.0 interface
• Hot-plug compatible 2.5-inch bay support
• High bandwidth for enterprise workloads

Benefits of 512n Format

• Improved system compatibility
• Seamless deployment in legacy and modern systems
• Reduced integration overhead

Operational Advantages

• On-the-fly drive replacement
• Minimized system downtime
• Improved maintenance efficiency

Installation Benefits

• Pre-installed carrier tray included
• Tool-less installation in supported servers
• Secure and stable drive positioning

Compatibility with Dell 

• PowerEdge C6420
• PowerEdge R440
• PowerEdge R640
• PowerEdge R6415
• PowerEdge R740 / R740xd
• PowerEdge R7415 / R7425
• PowerEdge R840
• PowerEdge R940 / R940xa

Key Advantages

• High-performance 15K RPM operation
• Reliable SAS 12Gbps architecture
• Enhanced data integrity and durability
• Scalable storage solution for enterprise growth

Dell 400-ASGV 900GB 15K RPM Hard Drive Overview

The Dell 400-ASGV 900GB 15K RPM SAS 12Gbps 512n hard drive with tray belongs to a high-performance enterprise storage category designed for mission-critical server environments that demand ultra-fast access times, consistent reliability, and strong input/output performance. This category is widely deployed in enterprise data centers, virtualization platforms, transactional databases, and high-frequency computing systems where storage latency directly impacts application responsiveness.

Engineered as a 2.5-inch small form factor (SFF) SAS hard drive, this category delivers an optimal balance between speed and enterprise durability. The inclusion of a pre-installed tray ensures seamless integration into Dell PowerEdge server systems, enabling hot-swap functionality and simplified maintenance in live production environments.

Core Technical Architecture

The 2.5-inch SFF design is a key advantage of the Dell 400-ASGV category, allowing higher drive density per server chassis compared to traditional 3.5-inch LFF drives. This enables organizations to scale storage capacity efficiently without expanding physical rack space.

Small form factor drives are optimized for airflow efficiency and thermal control, ensuring stable operation even in high-density server configurations. This makes them particularly suitable for blade servers, modular storage arrays, and virtualization clusters.

Pre-Installed Hot-Plug Tray Integration

The inclusion of a Dell-certified drive tray ensures full compatibility with supported server backplanes. This tray system enables hot-swapping, allowing IT administrators to replace or install drives without powering down the server. This feature significantly reduces downtime and enhances system availability in enterprise environments.

The tray is engineered for secure locking mechanisms, vibration resistance, and proper alignment within Dell server enclosures, ensuring consistent connectivity and mechanical stability.

Performance Specifications 

At the core of the Dell 400-ASGV category is its 15,000 RPM rotational speed, which delivers extremely fast mechanical access times compared to lower RPM enterprise drives. This high-speed rotation significantly reduces seek time and improves random read/write performance.

This makes the drive ideal for workloads requiring rapid data retrieval, such as SQL databases, ERP systems, OLTP transactions, and real-time analytics processing.

SAS 12Gbps High-Bandwidth Interface

The Serial Attached SCSI 12Gbps interface provides a high-speed, full-duplex communication channel between the drive and the server controller. This ensures minimal bottlenecks in data transmission and supports sustained high-throughput workloads.

The dual-port SAS architecture enhances redundancy by allowing multiple data paths, ensuring continuous availability even in the event of a path failure. This feature is critical in high-availability enterprise systems.

512n Native Sector Format

The 512n sector format represents native 512-byte sector alignment, which ensures maximum compatibility with legacy enterprise applications and operating systems. This format is particularly beneficial in environments that have not transitioned to 4K native (4Kn) storage architectures.

It ensures seamless integration with older RAID controllers and storage management systems while maintaining consistent performance characteristics.

Reliability and Durability

The Dell 400-ASGV category is engineered for continuous 24/7 operation in enterprise environments. It is designed to handle sustained workloads without performance degradation, making it suitable for data centers that require constant uptime.

This includes virtualization clusters, cloud infrastructure nodes, and high-transaction financial systems where downtime is not acceptable.

Vibration and Thermal Stability

The mechanical design of the drive includes rotational vibration sensors and compensation mechanisms that maintain stable performance in multi-drive server environments. This is particularly important in dense storage arrays where multiple drives operate in close proximity.

Thermal optimization ensures that the drive maintains safe operating temperatures even under sustained workloads, reducing wear and extending operational lifespan.

Compatibility and System Integration

The Dell 400-ASGV 900GB SAS drive is fully compatible with a wide range of Dell PowerEdge servers, including rack-mounted and blade configurations. The included tray ensures plug-and-play integration into supported systems.

This compatibility extends to enterprise storage arrays and modular storage enclosures designed for SAS-based architectures.

RAID Controlle

This category supports integration with enterprise RAID controllers, enabling various redundancy and performance configurations. It is commonly deployed in RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10 arrays depending on workload requirements.

RAID compatibility ensures that the drive can be used in both performance-optimized and fault-tolerant storage architectures.

Virtualization

In virtualized environments, multiple virtual machines rely on shared storage resources. The Dell 400-ASGV drive provides the necessary IOPS performance to support dense VM deployments without performance bottlenecks.

This makes it suitable for VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM-based infrastructures.

Power Consumption Profile

Despite its high-performance spindle speed, the Dell 400-ASGV is optimized for enterprise energy efficiency. Power usage is balanced between performance and operational cost considerations, making it suitable for large-scale deployments.

Scalability and Infrastructure Expansion

The 900GB capacity per drive allows organizations to scale storage incrementally while maintaining high-performance characteristics. Multiple drives can be combined to create large, distributed storage pools.

This scalability is essential for growing enterprises that need flexible storage expansion without major infrastructure redesign.

When deployed within enterprise storage ecosystems, these drives contribute to optimized performance layers in tiered storage architectures, where they often serve as high-speed intermediate storage between SSD tiers and archival HDD layers.