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FEATURES
With the P120 series, Samsung has left the Ultra-ATA interface behind completely.
Although a legacy PATA version is sold in limited quantities, the SATA version
uses a true SATA interface, not the SATA to PATA bridge of the previous design.
This means it can support the latest features of SATA, such as Native Command
Queuing and Staggered Spin-up, but it loses the ability to be powered via the
ubiquitous Molex connectors.
No legacy Molex power connector here: A true SATA logic board controls the drive.
In the past, Hitachi has impressed us with its implementation of drive-based
power management, so the appearance of Device Initiated SATA Power Management
piqued our interest. However, unlike Hitachi's drives, the P120 requires the
cooperation of a drive controller that supports SATA Link Power Management to
take advantage of its power saving features. Furthermore, the reduction in power
consumption comes from disabling parts of the logic board, not from unloading
the read/write heads or reducing the spindle speed. For this reason, the reduction
in power can be expected to about half a watt — much less than Hitachi's
four watt improvement. A
discussion of SATA Link Power Management may be found on Intel's web site.
Like most other modern drives, the P120 supports Automatic Acoustic Management
(AAM). Samsung has also trademarked a feature called "SilentSeek"
whose implementation sounds very similar to AAM, but Samsung claims that, unlike
AAM, there is "virtually no degradation in performance". It is not
clear whether SilentSeek is implemented in addition to or instead of AAM, as
the only place where the feature is described in detail is Samsung's
Australian web site, where AAM is not listed as a feature at all.
Another trademarked feature relating to noise is something called NoiseGuard.
The marketing material on NoiseGuard seems to imply that it's not a single feature
but rather a collective name for several noise-reducing elements of the P120's
design: "Modification of the spindle motor's design", optimized air
flow, and the use of damping material to reduce vibration.
The choice of motor in the Spinpoint series has been a slight issue in the
past because the noise signature of the drive varies depending on the brand
of motor used. Drives with a JVC motor have a reputation for having a high pitched
whine that is not present in drives with a Nidec motor. Our own tests with the
JVC motor version did not show a large difference between the two motors, but
this
poll suggests that the quality of the JVC motor varies. Only time will tell
whether the same issue will arise with the P120, but so far I have been unable
to find any reports of P120s with JVC motors. Our sample shipped with a Nidec
branded motor.
Our sample shipped with a Nidec branded motor.
Although we are not set up to do performance testing on hard drives, we know
that areal density is one of the most important factors in determining drive
speed. With this in mind, the 250 GB version of the P120 should be quite fast,
while our 200 GB test sample should be roughly on par with most other drives
in the field. This theoretical disparity between the two different capacities
was confirmed by anecdotal
evidence on our forums and on other sites. NCQ may also have a small impact
on performance.
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