Samsung 400 GB: good choice for AV use with a Mac laptop?

silence_seeker · Post by **silence_seeker** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:51 pm

I'm considering getting a Samsung HD400LD, but having read through a lot of stuff here and there I'm not entirely sure if this is the one to get or not. A lot of it has to do with not understanding all the tech talk

What I'm looking for is first of all a very quiet drive. I've read that although the Samsung drives are quiet they create quite a lot of vibration, and I'm not sure how this will affect my setup, placing it in an OWC Mercury elite-AL fanless metal enclosure which I've already bought.
It will be connected to a 15" 1.67GHz Apple Powerbook G4 using FireWire 800 (both the computer and the enclosure has connectors for FireWire 400, 800 and USB 2).
I'm not sure if I can "hang" the drive freely in that case or not, preventing any vibration.

The second thing I'm looking for is a drive that will be sufficient for my particular use, which will be audio recording/editing (Logic/Logic express etc.) and home-video editing (iMovie, Final Cut/Final Cut express etc.). I have no idea what to look for in the specs; if I need a specific "AV drive" or if any modern hard drive today will do.

So, is this drive worth getting, or are there better drives around which I should look into instead?

abyssinianson · Post by **abyssinianson** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:58 am

I am building a PC for audio recording as well so I am curious about this particular Samsung drive. any feedback?

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:38 pm

From what I understand, the (relatively) high vibration level means that decoupling is more important if you're going for near-silence.

As long as you don't do HD-video editing, any modern drive should provide plenty of performance.

silence_seeker · Post by **silence_seeker** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:46 pm

floffe wrote:From what I understand, the (relatively) high vibration level means that decoupling is more important if you're going for near-silence.

Too bad about the vibration

Are there quieter drives to consider?

What do you mean by "decoupling"?

As long as you don't do HD-video editing, any modern drive should provide plenty of performance.

I will edit Mini-DV tapes, as for music I will be doing multi-track recording. Will any modern drive handle that as well?

silence_seeker · Post by **silence_seeker** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 1:21 pm

Regarding my question about specs, I found a web-page which says something about what kind of hard-drive specs which are needed for Apple's Final cut pro (digital video editing software). For a Firewire drive (I intend to connect it via FireWire 800), and the page says:

If you choose to use a FireWire hard drive, make sure it meets these requirements:

* The drive is the only device on the FireWire bus.
* The drive's speed is at least 7200 RPM.
* The drive can sustain minimum data rates appropriate for your video format (3.7 MB/s for DV).
* The drive uses a modern, high-performance bridge chip such as the Oxford 911 or 922.
* The drive uses its own power supply, and is not powered from the FireWire bus.

The specs for the Samsung HD400LD say:

Read Seek Time(typical)
Track to Track: 0.8 ms
Average : 8.9 ms
Full Stroke : 18 ms
Average Latency: 4.17 ms
Rotational Speed: 7,200 rpm

Data Transfer Rate
Media to/from Buffer (max.): 400/1000 Mbits/sec
Buffer to/from Host(max.) : 100 MB/sec
Drive Ready Time(typical) : 10 sec

Can someone help me interpret these numbers so a mere mortal like me can figure out if these specs are up to what is recommended by Apple for video editing?

Furthermore, the above web page suggests that SCSI, Ultra-ATA or EIDE drives are better suited for video editing. But I don't see how my enclosure can handle any of those kind of drives.
I believe the enclosure I mentioned elsewhere in this thread only handles standard IDE drives (such as the Samsung HD400LD?), and the laptop can't be expanded for other kind of interfaces as far as I know.
Or have I misunderstood it all?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 5:03 am

Hello,

The current SPCR recommendations for large capacity HD's are the Western Digital SE16 -- see the review!

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:03 pm

silence_seeker wrote:R
Furthermore, the above web page suggests that SCSI, Ultra-ATA or EIDE drives are better suited for video editing. But I don't see how my enclosure can handle any of those kind of drives.
I believe the enclosure I mentioned elsewhere in this thread only handles standard IDE drives (such as the Samsung HD400LD?), and the laptop can't be expanded for other kind of interfaces as far as I know.
Or have I misunderstood it all?

EIDE stands for Enhanced IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics), and any IDE drive made in the last decade will come into this category (that includes the Samsung, obviously).

I think you'll probably find the Samsung (or the WD Neil mentioned) in a Firewire 800 enclosure is at least as fast for all practical purposes as your notebook's internal HDD....

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:48 pm

It simply means that using internal drives are preferrable to external ones, since that will allow a higher speed. Don't be worried about the minimum speed, all current drives stay well over 20MB/s AFAIK. The enclosure linked earlier mentioned one of those chipsets, so that should be ok.

The HD400LD is IDE within the enclosure, but connected to the computer via Firewire.

silence_seeker · Post by **silence_seeker** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:12 pm

floffe wrote: The HD400LD is IDE within the enclosure, but connected to the computer via Firewire.

Yup, I know about the external interfacing (actually it has Firewire 400, 800 and USB 2.0, so it's pretty flexible).

I'm more confused about the internal interfacing. From what I've been told I can only use a standard IDE drive and not a SATA drive. Can someone confirm or deny this?
If I can indeed use a SATA drive I should buy one for the extra speed over IDE drives I guess.

silence_seeker · Post by **silence_seeker** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:25 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hello,
The current SPCR recommendations for large capacity HD's are the Western Digital SE16 -- see the review!

Is this the review you're thinking about?

Then I looked at the review of the Samsung Spinpoint drives for comparison.

I don't understand all the techno-babble, but it seems to me that both drives give off an equal amount of noise, but sounding slightly differently.
Also, the WD review compares with a Samsung P-80 (80 GB?) drive, but I'm interested in something around 300-500 GB. I've also heard that quality-wise, Samsung is considered well built though nothing spectacular nor bad, while WD can come out with excellent drives or pure crap depending on how lucky/unlucky you are.
I'm very confused now!

Finally, isn't the WD SE-16 a SATA drive? As far as I know (until someone says otherwise) my external enclosure can only take IDE drives.

daremo · Post by **daremo** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 7:56 am

silence_seeker wrote:
floffe wrote: From what I've been told I can only use a standard IDE drive and not a SATA drive. Can someone confirm or deny this?
If I can indeed use a SATA drive I should buy one for the extra speed over IDE drives I guess.

I've been looking at enclosures for SATA drives. They're out there. I'm looking at some on pricewatch right now.

Chocolinx · Post by **Chocolinx** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 1:31 pm

All I can say about 400GB Seagate is that it's damn noisy when seeking! A whole lot louder than 400GB Western Digitals that are out right now. I'd seriously suggest you stay away from 400GB Seagates for now. I have on in my computer and it bugs the hell out of me at night. (Although I have really sensitive ears -_-)

daremo · Post by **daremo** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:13 pm

Chocolinx wrote:All I can say about 400GB Seagate is that it's damn noisy when seeking! A whole lot louder than 400GB Western Digitals that are out right now. I'd seriously suggest you stay away from 400GB Seagates for now. I have on in my computer and it bugs the hell out of me at night. (Although I have really sensitive ears -_-)

ditto and mine is constantly noisy, which is weird. although admittedly i tried to go cheap and get a refurb 400gb 7900.8. (ST3400832AS-R or something). It is horribly noisy - like a firehose running. my primary drive is supended and the Seagate is sitting on some foam on the bottom of the case. it's screwed into the hd cage (not attached to the case) to lift it up and give it some air. so both drives are decoupled. sorry if this is wandering OT.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 6:35 pm

silence_seeker wrote:
NeilBlanchard wrote:Hello,
The current SPCR recommendations for large capacity HD's are the Western Digital SE16 -- see the review!
Is this the review you're thinking about?

Then I looked at the review of the Samsung Spinpoint drives for comparison.

I don't understand all the techno-babble, but it seems to me that both drives give off an equal amount of noise, but sounding slightly differently.
Also, the WD review compares with a Samsung P-80 (80 GB?) drive, but I'm interested in something around 300-500 GB. I've also heard that quality-wise, Samsung is considered well built though nothing spectacular nor bad, while WD can come out with excellent drives or pure crap depending on how lucky/unlucky you are.
I'm very confused now!

Finally, isn't the WD SE-16 a SATA drive? As far as I know (until someone says otherwise) my external enclosure can only take IDE drives.

Sound quality is actually much more important than sound level. An example, when your at the beach, the waves crashing against the shore is actually quite loud sound power wise, but i doubt you'd find very many people that are bothered by the sound of the ocean because the noise quality is good. Also, while both drives sound similar at idle, the samsung drives have much more percievable seek noises than the WD.

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 8:05 pm

silence_seeker wrote:I'm more confused about the internal interfacing. From what I've been told I can only use a standard IDE drive and not a SATA drive. Can someone confirm or deny this?

Correct. The two standards use physically different connectors, so your enclosure will only be able to support one of the two standards. In your case this is EIDE.

If I can indeed use a SATA drive I should buy one for the extra speed over IDE drives I guess.

No point. There's no real performance difference.

You're right that the SE16 is only available in SATA. There is apparently a Regular Caviar SE available in EIDE: The 320GB WD3200JB. If you're interested, try and find the newest revision of this drive; if you're lucky, it will have noise characteristics similar to the SE16 that we reviewed. However, the EIDE Samsung is probably a more reliable bet in this instance.

kesv · Post by **kesv** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:01 am

silence_seeker wrote: I'm more confused about the internal interfacing. From what I've been told I can only use a standard IDE drive and not a SATA drive. Can someone confirm or deny this?
If I can indeed use a SATA drive I should buy one for the extra speed over IDE drives I guess.

External enclosures are usually made just for a single type of internal interface, so if you already have the enclosure that determines the type of drive you need.

As to the speed differences. The real limit for drive performance is set by their mechanical parts. The internal interface is pretty irrelevant.

The external interface is a somewhat different matter. With external interfaces you get varying amounts of extra lag, which can become a problem in video editing and similar applications. This is why they recommend using an internal drive if possible. However, if going with external drives, Firewire800 is indeed a good choice and most practical for a Mac.

silence_seeker · Post by **silence_seeker** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 6:37 am

Well, I finally ended up buying a Samsung 400 GB IDE drive (HD400LD), installed it in the fanless aluminium enclosure with Firewire 400/800 and USB 2.0 interfaces built in. I've used it for a week or so, so what can I say?.....

Well, it is indeed a lot quieter than other drives I've had in the past, but it's not silent. As mentioned previously, this drive vibrates a lot, causing vibration noise throughout the enclosure and whatever else is affected by that vibration.
So far I haven't tried just holding the drive in my hand or placing it upon something soft, but it seems to me that the low-frequency hum is the vibration while the drive itself only makes a "blowing wind" sort of sound in lack of a better description.
There's certainly no high frequency motor noise, "vacuum cleaner" or "jet engine" sound that I'm used to from before (you can probably tell that I'm not one of those people who buy new equipment every 6 months, but am caught up in old technology)

Nevertheless, my aim was to end up with a drive being as quiet as possible (since solid-state flash drives are still too expensive to replace ordinary hard drives), so I believe I have to look into methods of dampening the vibration. If I could get hold of some screws or alternative solutions to the regular screw mounting inside the enclosure I think I would get a much quieter drive, but I have yet to figure out what kind of solutions are available.

Overall, I'm quite happy with this drive, but a little disappointed that it isn't silent, but I guess that's too much to ask for something mechanical.