For Windows XP/2K3/Mac OS X: buy something which doesn't need TRIM. Which means Sandforce or the new Toshiba controller. For Windows 7: buy something from the last generation, which has a good deal, or what brand you trust: anything Sandforce based or the Crucial C300 I would change that first cate...

I think the most important point, what many people is missing that the least important thing is sequential read speed. For normal usage, it doesn't matter at all. Look at it, my Samsung F4EG has a sequential read speed at about 130 MB/s. The same as a WD Raptor and the same as most of the SSDs durin...

I don't know what the standard for measuring IOPS is but I know it's more important for server/database loads. For PC users, I think the most important number is 4K random read, then write. Don't know how wise or foolish this is, but I always look for the Vantage Benchmark numbers for the time it t...

dhanson865 wrote:windows calculator

As the data corruption can only happen if there is a SMART query, and as the enclosure doesn't support SMART, it means that the drive in this enclosure is not affected. For the warranty: many companies do this, as it's much harder to get market share in the states. Many brands do Lifetime warranty i...

The biggest unknown question is how will they be priced. I personally don't care about IOPS for my home PC use. I care more about price, reliability, boot time, random read, and random write performance. Any drive that does well on random r/w MB/s will exceed my desire for sequential R/W speeds. An...

Acronis ISO is safe to use, it's Paragon which causes problems. Someone here: http://forum.hddguru.com/sector-formatting-what-you-need-know-t15827.html#p123648 complains about both, even more about Acronis. I've quickly read into but I haven't find anyone mentioning that Acronis would cause data co...

Sorry should have said but I have a dedicated hardware card, Highpoint RR1740. Will I run into any issues with misalignment with this? As far as I know missalignement will only cause slower HD performance in some situations, nothing else. Not true. It can give frequent system stalling, or even BSOD...

Sorry should have said but I have a dedicated hardware card, Highpoint RR1740. Will I run into any issues with misalignment with this? Everything depends on the RAID card's driver. You'll have to ask Highpoint by email! And RAID5 makes things even more complicated as it has stripe size, so it's 1. ...

About Samsungs being quiet: have a look in the F4EG topic! There are a few 2 TB owners including me, and their vibration tends to be distributed from WD Green levels to 7200 rpm levels. I know I have one, which vibrates more than my Seagate 7200.12 drive. If it's suspended it's OK, but without suspe...

I don't know if RAID5 is compatible between W2K3 server and Win 7. So you might need to format them normally and align them. Acronis ISO is safe to use, it's Paragon which causes problems. But I would strongly advice against any Windows software RAID! They are the most unreliable things in the world...

When my Samsung Spinpoint F4 HD204UI/Z4 2TB is turned off there is a weird relatively loud 'knocking' sound of slowing down spinning plates. Here is the record of the sound (please, turn the volume up to hear it): http://www.avforums.com/forums/attachments/pvrs-vcrs/223015d1296422657-humax-hdr-fox-...

I am surprised that you people are complaining about vibrations. I think I read in this topic that it does not vibrate. So it seems that it depends what piece man gets but it should not be like that. If it is only 5400 rpm and three platters. It should not vibrate at all. When it vibrates I would s...

I was more than surprised how much mine vibrates, it's comparable to 7200 rpm drives. I was running out of time, so returning and asking for a refund was not an option, but I was seriously considering it. It is cooler, quicker, (i believe) more reliable, and has better RAID support than any WD Gree...

... in my opinion, the only reliable brands are Samsung and Hitachi. yeh yeh! 100% agreed based on my experiences. The only downside of the Samsung is that it vibrates a lot (at least mine). So some kind of soft suspension is a must with the Samsung. awww what? mines in the mail at the moment so i ...

Which one is a better hard drive in terms of noise then: Samsung HD204UI 2TB or Western Digital WD20EARS 2TB I want to get one just to store my media on. Are there much performance differences? Thanks I have both. If you consider putting it in a NAS or in RAID in the future, get the Samsung. WD is ...

I wrote it on purpose, as I it seems everyone who asks this questions asks about formatting, and not partitioning, even if it has nothing to do with formatting. There are million ways to do it, but if he has access to any Win 7 computer, by far the easiest one is to put it in a USB caddy and do ever...

Hi, after reading this thread I think I know what is the AF but there is still one question unanswered for me. Is it worth it to format the AF HDDs in Windows Vista or 7 with 4k sectors? :idea: Yes, Advanced Format HDDs must be formatted in 4k way. If not, they will produce unreliable slowdowns and...

http://www.silentpcreview.com/samsung-f4-seagate-xt-2tb Thanks for the link. This drive seems excellent, definitely considering it. But can you tell me is it even quieter than the 1,5 Tb F2 Ecogreen HD154UI drive? Here in Finland the 1,5 F2 HD154UI cost 74.90 € and the 2 Gb HD204UI 93,90€. I would ...

I've bought one and did the patch before writing any data on it. From the first day I remember it was a quiet drive, but on the 2nd day it started to develop strange vibrations. Now it's 3x noisier than any of my WD Green drives and it has actually a louder vibration than my Seagate 7200 RPM drive! ...

http://www.silentpcreview.com/samsung-f4-seagate-xt-2tb Thanks for the link. This drive seems excellent, definitely considering it. But can you tell me is it even quieter than the 1,5 Tb F2 Ecogreen HD154UI drive? Here in Finland the 1,5 F2 HD154UI cost 74.90 € and the 2 Gb HD204UI 93,90€. I would ...

I have been looking for this for a long time, and I found that none of the normal cases provide enough cooling for the drive and/or to the electronics in the small area they have between the drive and the outer shell. On the other hand, I can only say positive things about the vertical docks made by...

On this web page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018/en-us M$ shows a table: 'Support for Hard Disk Formats based on OS Version', which shows that this 512e spupport is available only since Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 7 with KB 982018 hotfix: "Advanced Format, 512-bye Emulation, 512e, 4k/512e 4 KB...

If you like waiting for hours instead of creating a good one with one click, then yes, in theory it would work. Booting your computer with a Win 7 recovery cd isn't that hard at all. So you claim that Win 7 recovery cd should be able to format a new HD? And what about the case when someone formatte...

Don't use partition aligning by Paragon, I had data corruption by using their software. Acronis made ones works well, btw. (WD align is a rebranded Acronis one) But if you would use Paragon Aligning Tool for empty (formated in XP) drive, then there is nothing to corrupt, so in this case it should b...

Guys you make all this 4K a bigger issue then it is. The easiest thing you can do with a 4K drive is to partition it under Windows 7 in any computer, using a USB caddy for example! You can use a USB caddy or a SATA-USB adapter or native SATA connection, it doesn't matter. Everyone has a Windows 7 no...

OK, one sample might not mean anything, but just let's quote from newegg's feedback page of WD20EARS. I collected these from the last 10 review . I did not dig into the reviews to find bad ones, it's just the last page. 1. It failed in one day! 2. After 4 months of light to mediate usage I began to ...

Check what I wrote about Samsung F4 in the other thread. It's the only 2 TB drive on Newegg with 5 star average rating. For anything reliable, just forget about WD or Seagate. But Hitachi or Samsung.

I bought a new EARS 20 in September and it was the 4 platter version. It produced a strange error that it's sequential reading and sequential writing speeds were good, but it was almost freezing in copy-verify file operations. It took about 4 times as much time to copy files with verify operation co...

I think you cannot. I always put the black micro-fibre cloth between the display and the keyboard, to save the display from marks when transporting.