Has anybody seen / heard / tried the new Samsung hard drives that are supposedly available up to 160 Gb? I'm especially interested in a 7200 rpm model if such a beast exists.

I'd be very interested in hearing about acoustic and thermal performance of these units.

regards,
Halcy

Samsung has not presented any new drives for a while. The last one was SpinPoint V60 which was 60 GB platter 5400. They only have 40 GB platter 7200 which is SpinPoint P40.

Although I did see somewhere that they were working on 7200 drives with FDB. Which makes me go 'hmmm'. Samsungs didnt use FDB before? And they are still fairly quiet. With FDB they cant be noisier, thats for sure.

I need a new drive. Anyone think they will arrive soon and will the new Samsungs be worth the wait? I had my mind set on a one platter CudaV for a while.. but they seem to be gone from the shelves now and I am not sure I trust 7200.7 to be quiet enough for me. Or I could probably get a CudaIV 40Gb somwhere, though. But thats less storage for almost the same price.

A 160G 7200rpm drive is on the SPCR testbench. A few more days for the review. In short: it's good.

Oooh, oooh, me want to try! Seriously, more competition is a good thing. I would love to see a three way shootout (MikeC, please?):

SATA: Beautiful Silence vs. Raw Performance (or both?)
- Maxtor DiamondMax 9+
- Seagate Barracuda V / 7200.7
- Samsung mystery drive

That would pretty much answer every question...

RDaneel

Am trying to compare IBM 180GXP (30, 60 & 120G), Barracuda IV 40G and SS160. Lots of work. No others on hand. Besides, my experience with Maxtor leaves me cold: way too noisy. These are definitely all quieter.

They may be loud, but they are also fast. I guess that there are benchmarks that I can use to compare the performance from places like SotrageReview, who probably tested the quiet drives too. Must go check them out again.

Thanks for the comparison. It's very useful to hopelessly obscessive comparison shoppers such as myself. These forums are great for that kind of thing (along with HardOCP and AVS Forums you have WAYYYY to much info!).

I would hate to admit it on any other forum, but I would trade 5 or even 10% benchmark performance for silence. Besides, that 10% doesn't show up as anything appreicable in the real world, right? The noise does, though.

Cheers,
RDaneel

Recently, EnvyNews reviewed the 160 MB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA (see this page) and were quite ecstatic. The drive is rated 27 dB idle, 35 dB seek, though it's not clear if that is with or without any acoustic management options. These aren't bad numbers, but I'm not sure how to think about the reviewer's subjective judgement ("Even with my case fans turned off temporarily I could not hear the drive over the ambient sounds in the room.") Their benchmarks largely showed a substantial performance advantage (sometimes 20-50%!) over others tested in the same rig (Seagate 'Cuda V, PATA & SATA, Maxtor DiamondMax Plus PATA). BTW, this drive used FDB.

BTW, I haven't seen this SATA drive on storagereview.com, though they did look at the PATA version (see their site at search for their 27 Feb review). If Maxtor's PATA version has the same internals, sound level should be comparable, though SATA could be substantial faster. Storagereview's numbers showed the PATA performance to be quite good (grossly similar to IBM 180GXP) and reasonably quiet ("its noise floor approaches that of Seagate's latest Barracudas").

So:

1) How does the real-life sound level measure up by SPCR's exacting standards?
2) Are these possible performance specs really that subtantial?
3) If answers to 1 & 2 are positive, could this be the drive that overturns Maxtor's ban?
4) If 1, 2, & 3, where can I get these drives?

Inquiring minds want to know.

tragus -- I have to agree the Maxtor D9+ specs http://www.maxtor.com/en/documentation/ ... _sheet.pdf look promising. The noise is specified (like 99% of all hdd makers) in sound power, in bels. 2.7 bels in idle is quite good, 3.3 in seek not that good but not bad. The equivalent Seagate 'cuda 7200.7 SATA specs (w/ac management on) is <2.5 and 2.8 bel (typical). Of course, there is the question of whether AM is used these days -- the figures w/o AM are 2.5 and 3.4, similar to the Maxtor. Neither of these are really close to the single platter B-IV, however, which is 2.1 bel in idle, 2.4 seek with AM turned on (typical), and they come AFAIK, with AM turned on.

I think the big question with these Maxtors would be: how much whine?

The recent 1-platter maxtors I encountered briefly had too much whine and noise to really take seriously. I admit to getting confused with their modle numbering. I think one was an 8+? A thinner than normal (less than 1" tall) drive. Not bad for noise, but no competition to the 'cuda 1-platter. Another was a typical size & look with the typical noise -- terrible.

Silence and Stability are worth so much more to me than Speed.

I have a DM+9, and although definately noisier than a 'Cuda IV or V, it is one of the quieter drives out there - everything else in my machine is noisier:

- modded Zalman ZM300APF with NMB 22dB fan mounted externally

- modded Antec Sonata case for better aiflow from front bezel, 5v at stock rear fan, partitioned top part of case from bottom so PSU draws in cool air.

- WD800JB (noisy, but the Sonata mounts quieten it down a lot)

- DM+9 80Gb

- Passive graphics and mobo cooling

Cannot hear it at all... so I wouldn't rule it out, and it is a pretty quiet machine as well.

Hear hear! (oops, bad pun...)

Waiting to see the Samsung review to see if this will finally be the one to replace my WD, but I'd hate to give up too much speed. At this point though, anything would be an improvement over the WD noisewise...

And I refuse to deal with chirping HD's.