Samsung F1 series hard drives w/1TB model

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:20 am

Welcome to SPCR!

flavian · Post by **flavian** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 7:57 am

Full scan finished. All fine.

In the end only Simple Read / Write test Error : Command timeout.

NO M.C. Error, NO surface error, same Hutil 2.10

Firmware: 1AA01108

No strange noises so far, running cold and silent.
I'll start loading it with data and I'll try some benchmarks for comparison. First one was 100MB/s average sustained transfer and 13ms Acces Time. Hope this one scores the same.

james111 · Post by **james111** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:24 am

flavian wrote:Full scan finished. All fine.

In the end only Simple Read / Write test Error : Command timeout.

NO M.C. Error, NO surface error, same Hutil 2.10

Firmware: 1AA01108

No strange noises so far, running cold and silent.
I'll start loading it with data and I'll try some benchmarks for comparison. First one was 100MB/s average sustained transfer and 13ms Acces Time. Hope this one scores the same.

Can you post a screen shot of this 100mb/s... most people with this hard drive only average between 90-95mb/s.

zzombi · Post by **zzombi** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 4:57 pm

"NO M.C. Error, NO surface error, same Hutil 2.10 Firmware: 1AA01108"

Looks like a reflash can take care of that. Either way it's still a reprogramming, hutil or firmware...

Did you notice a mechanical difference between the 2 drives, as in vibration and noise, or of temperature?

flavian · Post by **flavian** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:31 am

@james111 - you are actually right, my bad, sorry
Only first 50% has an average over 100MB/s, the second half drops down to about 60MB/s. The total average is about 91MB/s.
I usually know how to use a forum, but I don't see any option to attach a screenshot around here

Acces time 13.7 ms

@zzombi - no difference at first look, but the first one I only kept it for about 3 days before returning, so I had not too much time to play with it.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 8:03 am

flavian - no attaching here, just host it with www.imageshack.us

flavian · Post by **flavian** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 8:22 am

ok, let's see if it works:

zzombi · Post by **zzombi** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:36 am

Were those MB/s or only MiB/s?

The access time was better.

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:21 am

I swapped out my HD501LJ for the HD753LJ this week and am very pleased so far.
I left the settings on auto which means that itâ€™s on the noisiest setting I assume but I still canâ€™t hear it at all even when defragging it. It is 34C at idle and hardy rose above that when copying 350GB data to it.
I havenâ€™t run the Samsung utility but I did run a full format.

Note: Itâ€™s installed on a small piece of acoustic foam with an 80mm Nexus @ 780 RPM resting on top of it on blutack. It works for me.

zzombi · Post by **zzombi** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:58 pm

Looks like all family is available, finnaly

capacity 1000/750/640/320
price 183/97/93/65

Actually the 750 is somewhat lower density, but still F1.
The 640 seems the best bargain overall, but I think the 320 is the best in noise.

Speaking of F1, the 2008 season has just begun!

sheninat0r · Post by **sheninat0r** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:44 pm

zzombi wrote:Looks like all family is available, finnaly

capacity 1000/750/640/320
price 183/97/93/65

Actually the 750 is somewhat lower density, but still F1.
The 640 seems the best bargain overall, but I think the 320 is the best in noise.

Speaking of F1, the 2008 season has just begun!

Where are the 640 and 320 available? Been looking for those forever...

zzombi · Post by **zzombi** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:33 am

"Where are the 640 and 320 available?"

Online stores. I picked the prices with search/price engines.

eg http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/?fs= ... =&x=25&y=7

The 320 could be a spurious signal though, only 1 store listed. That's the one I'd like, unless the 640/750 get cheaper than it - they seem to be free falling each day

"Been looking for those forever...
...with a crowbar."
Just make sure it's not too magnetized...

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:25 pm

Hello,

Here's a review of the 1TB F1:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14200

And here's the juicy bit:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14200/14

SileX · Post by **SileX** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:44 am

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hello,

Here's a review of the 1TB F1:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14200

And here's the juicy bit:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14200/14

Amazing, taking into account that the Western Digital Green Power drives are 5,400 rpm and not 7,200 rpm as the Samsung SpinPoint F1 is. Truly remarkable for Samsung. Well done!

zavaras · Post by **zavaras** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:14 am

What about vibration noise?

zzombi · Post by **zzombi** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:51 am

"What about vibration noise?"

What is that? Noise itself is a vibration. Vibration of the air. I guess with careful design Samsung hdds vibrate more at lower harmonics, thus being quieter to the ear, but more feelable to the hand, a common complaint. Between the two which one is preferable? (Goes without saying if you care about silence you suspend hdds).

Pitty the last review shows only mediocre performance in file server mode (IOs). WDs have the upper hand there. Not too important for desktop mode though, where application loading is excellent.

xen · Post by **xen** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 9:28 am

I plan on housing a new harddisk inside an external 3.5" enclosure. There is obviously no possibility to suspend the harddisk inside the enclosure, although the enclosure will rest on an absorbing surface (carpet). I'm not sure whether the high vibration of the Samsung T166 series, and likewise, any possible high vibration of the F1 series, will make itself heard through the enclosure. So vibration may matter.

Any of you have any experience in vibration induced noise in external enclosures? The enclosure I have in mind is the Sharkoon Swift-Case, because it looks nice =].

zzombi · Post by **zzombi** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 11:16 am

These hdds were carefully studied to disipate outside the bothering audible spectrum, and that can easily be spoiled by being cheap on the mounting. But if admiring a nice looking hdd box makes up for that...

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... Guard.html

Rigid mounting is akin to attaching a membrane to a speaker coil. And there's another issue, fixing rigidly more than 1 hdd with similar rpms in close proximity is asking for all kinds of interference noises. I had 2 hdds like that and the beating oscillation they made was awfull, it was like an amplified breathing sound.

xen · Post by **xen** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 12:13 pm

Well, I ordered them (F1 750GB). I will just have to see what the noise is going to be. I had conceived of it as a temporary solution until I get myself a SATA system, because I didn't want to buy an IDE harddisk and then be stuck with multiple IDE devices after I upgrade my system. But I'm beginning to doubt the temporarity of it, since I really have no desire or reason to buy a new system...

. *cross me fingers*.

You don't even need two harddisks to get such a breathing like sound. I recently had a Spinpoint T166 resting on a bed of tiewraps, but the case was tilted to the side so that the drive also rested against the case on one side. This combination caused it to produce a horrible hum that would wax and wane constantly in a breathing like pattern.

Edit: Shame that the fan of the Antec enclosure is reportedly so noisy.

xen · Post by **xen** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 1:16 pm

Hmm I got a good idea. I am using an external enclosure mainly because my attempt at using a SATA controller failed miserably. But having an external HDD means increased noise.

But, there is also the Scythe Kama Connect 2. It is intended to be used outside of the computer, to connect SATA and IDE devices over USB... but why not place it inside? All I need is an internal USB port, which I have, and to feed the wire from the external adapter into the case, which is easy. It's a bit of a strange solution, but it should work. The only real drawback for me is that USB does not provide the most reliable of connections, in terms of recognition sometimes failing, but the harddisk is just a data disk so that's not much of a problem. That, and the fact that the Kama's power button is now inside the case

. An internal external =)))).

zzombi · Post by **zzombi** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:40 pm

"This combination caused it to produce a horrible hum that would wax and wane constantly in a breathing like pattern."

Not impossible, but are you sure it wasn't interfering with some other spinning part, like a cooling fan?

Isn't it a pitty to buy 2 fast hdds and then connect them using USB? Better try E-SATA, or even internal SATA ports. Oh, now I see your mb is a little old. Better get a SATA mb to begin with. With the money for 1 hdd you get mb/cpu/mem these days. There are also cheap SATA/IDE adaptors, but frankly there's little point.

Getting entry level components but upgrading more often gets you the same system performance on the average for less money vs rare upgrade+hi-end. The pace of IT industry is too high to bother buying fastest systems today, obsolete tomorrow.

xen · Post by **xen** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:35 am

Not impossible, but are you sure it wasn't interfering with some other spinning part, like a cooling fan?

I don't know really, but I doubt it. There were 3 slow-spinning 80mm fans, plus a 5400 notebook drive that was resting on foam.

I know I would be better off having a recent mobo, but I just don't feel like making that step yet... I know USB provides relatively slow speeds, but I'm not doing anything serious with my system these days so I'm not in a hurry getting high performance. My current system disk (old 5400) is slower than what USB can provide. Maybe it's completely irrational, buying a 750GB drive and yet, sticking to a Socket A platform, but I'm hoping the drive will outlive my platform. It get's kinda messy, but well, shoot.

I'm just thinking I'll just get myself a 780G system in a couple months time, when the new mainboards have come out, and then sell the usb enclosure again. Something like that...

Kepakko · Post by **Kepakko** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:36 am

My 750GB (HD753LJ from 10/2007) drive broke on friday :(

I got Input/output errors from everything such as basic commands as cp and ls on linux. I ran HUTIL and got tons of Sector errors and the program recommended that I should return this drive.

The drive is pretty quiet when suspended properly otherwise it's horrible. I'll probably try to replace the broken Samsung with 7500AACS from WD.

xen · Post by **xen** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:39 am

Kepakko, how do you think the drive will do in your average usb enclosure? I mean, there isn't much material to start resonating to begin with since these enclosures are not very big... what would you think?

nicko · Post by **nicko** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:11 am

Kepakko wrote:My 750GB (HD753LJ from 10/2007) drive broke on friday

I got Input/output errors from everything such as basic commands as cp and ls on linux. I ran HUTIL and got tons of Sector errors and the program recommended that I should return this drive.

The drive is pretty quiet when suspended properly otherwise it's horrible. I'll probably try to replace the broken Samsung with 7500AACS from WD.

Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm affraid of that. That's why I'm waiting for new WD Caviar SE16 640gb. It even produces less noise.

Kepakko · Post by **Kepakko** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:58 am

xen wrote:Kepakko, how do you think the drive will do in your average usb enclosure? I mean, there isn't much material to start resonating to begin with since these enclosures are not very big... what would you think?

I wouldn't recommend unless you put it on pillow

I tested the drive in my KC-31 (I think) enclosure and it's louder than my laptop (Dell M1330) and desktop (let's just say it has 6 hdds and 7 120 mm fans) machines.

zzombi · Post by **zzombi** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:51 pm

That's unfortunate to hear, because all the performance in the world means little when you lose it.

I encourage you all visit the storagereview reliability survey, tell about your hdd experiences, good and bad. Once you do this you gain access to the reliability database, made by the users ourselves. No marketing lies.

See how reliable various HDD models really are.

xen · Post by **xen** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 3:31 pm

It's too bad the WD GP drives are so expensive. The 750GB GP costs 30% more than the Samsung F1 of same capacity. That for a drive whose cost in R&D was probably very modest, as originating from existing models.

I think I'll just try to use one of those SATA to IDE converters for my current mobo instead of an external enclosure or Kama Connect (I hadn't seen them offered anywhere before!). I wonder if they function well. Sounds like the T166 and F1 are both in dire need of suspension, after all.

Bit off topic but...

How do you people work with large data collections when spread over multiple drives? I imagine myself having two 320GB drives for my personal data collection, one internal and one external as a weekly rsync/unison backup. Then when I start nearing the 320G limit, I will need to either replace them with two larger drives, or to just add the two larger drives to the collection. That would mean that I either maintain two distinct volumes of data that I each mirror on its own backup, or use a 'Just a Bunch Of Disks' RAID to make them into one volume, but then the backup process will get complicated unless I backup to a similar JBOD array, which is impossible with USB externals, although it may be possible with eSATA disks. I prefer external backups because it gives me mobility, but an eSATA JBOD array would nullify that of course.

It just sounds easiest to just sell off the 320G disks and buy larger ones to replace them. How do you tackle this issue?

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:47 am

Running the hutil surface scan atm, got the M.C. ecc error, not fussed about it after reading all the previous posts.

re what ppl do with their data, I only back up my personal documents, not even my pictures. couple of dvd's take care of that, and a copy on an old 40GB disk offline...
I do put those on a different disk than the OS by design, but would it really be that bad to lose the stuff I have on the other disks? most can be downloaded again, and my own tv captures, well, too bad, room again for new stuff...

sweatypickle · Post by **sweatypickle** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:08 pm

Kepakko wrote:My 750GB (HD753LJ from 10/2007) drive broke on friday

I got Input/output errors from everything such as basic commands as cp and ls on linux. I ran HUTIL and got tons of Sector errors and the program recommended that I should return this drive.

The drive is pretty quiet when suspended properly otherwise it's horrible. I'll probably try to replace the broken Samsung with 7500AACS from WD.

Had you run HUTIL when you got the drive in October?