Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5 TB - Have anyone tried it?

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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Fred
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Post by Fred » Mon Aug 17, 2009 6:27 pm

Got mine today(finally decent prices in sweden).
My computer isn't dead silent but it is very quiet(a light fan woosh thing), and with the HDD installed the sound isn't much different. I can't point out any new sounds sitting in my chair or semi-bending down from it. It's very quiet.

trxman
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Location: system

Post by trxman » Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:35 am

does it have some reallocated sectors?

Fred
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Post by Fred » Thu Aug 20, 2009 9:18 am

I pressed the 'perform an in-depth online analysis' in speedfan, this is what i got:
Image

Also, the temps seem good, 28C vs 41C on my WD6400AAKS. I'm using a P182 and have placed them in the lower part without a fan. I literally tore out the stock fan(along with it's plastic thing that was holding it up) down there. Partly because it didn't do a thing, but also because i needed more space for the million molex cables my PSU has.

grandpatzer
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Post by grandpatzer » Sat Aug 29, 2009 3:27 pm

I'm interested in hearing more comments on noise levels.

Interested in having one of these in a external harddrive casing, anyone tried this and could comment on the noise?

is there better "noise" options 1-2tb hdd's?

Tomshardware says WD has less noise: http www tomshardware com/reviews/1.5tb-hdd-caviar,2331-9.html

Kaleid
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Location: Sweden

Post by Kaleid » Sun Aug 30, 2009 1:07 am

Got myself a F2 1tB drive. Missed the fact that they also existed in 1.5tb size.. oh well.

But from what I can tell just by listening. The F2 is quieter than WD 640 GP and certainly a lot quieter than the WD 640 Blue (which I'm going to sell)
The F2 is the first drive I don't feel the need to quieten down further by placing it in a Scythe Quiet drive. But I'll probably do it anyway...silence is golden.

Edit: Addendum..
The F2 is the quietest drive I've ever owned.
Last edited by Kaleid on Wed Sep 02, 2009 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

grandpatzer
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Post by grandpatzer » Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:49 pm

has anyone tested this in external enclosure?

How does "poweroff" work, I have had mybook and I know those do spindown automaticaly after a while, not sure if that is because of windows or if WD harddrive or mybook system has built in spindown function?

JazzJackRabbit
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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Mon Aug 31, 2009 6:33 pm

grandpatzer wrote:I'm interested in hearing more comments on noise levels.

Interested in having one of these in a external harddrive casing, anyone tried this and could comment on the noise?

is there better "noise" options 1-2tb hdd's?

Tomshardware says WD has less noise: http www tomshardware com/reviews/1.5tb-hdd-caviar,2331-9.html
Good news is I just happened to have WD10EACS 00D6B0 and HD154UI laying around. Both are three platter drives and both have 5400RPM speed. I also just happened to have Antec MX-1 enclosure lying around, I unplugged the fan and tested both in open air.

That's as far as the good news go. Bad news is that there really isn't much that difference between two drives to make a clear winner. They are just too close sound volume and sound quality wise. In my case, subjectively speaking, I preferred HD154UI noise because it was smoother. The WD10EACS that I tested had some sort of secondary higher pitch noise to the sound and it was the sole reason I preferred Samsung over WD. It was a very faint high pitch tone, but it was there nonetheless.

Overall I don't think it will matter which drive you will choose. We're fortunate enough to see a revival of 5400RPM drives and fortunate enough that all of them are very quiet.

Your choice may be decided by secondary factors. I've never experienced idle parking with my WD10EACS, but some users have it, and it annoys them. Also both WD10EACS and HD154UI make calibration sound when first turned on, but Samsung one is MUCH louder and longer. If you will keep your drive in external enclosure and if you will set windows to spin it down often, the starting up sound may be annoying to you.

Migi06
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Location: Finland

Post by Migi06 » Mon Sep 07, 2009 9:39 am

Kaleid wrote:Got myself a F2 1tB drive. Missed the fact that they also existed in 1.5tb size.. oh well.

But from what I can tell just by listening. The F2 is quieter than WD 640 GP and certainly a lot quieter than the WD 640 Blue (which I'm going to sell)
The F2 is the first drive I don't feel the need to quieten down further by placing it in a Scythe Quiet drive. But I'll probably do it anyway...silence is golden.

Edit: Addendum..
The F2 is the quietest drive I've ever owned.
Really good to know (I did own Wd640 aaks).. Now this F2 1.5tb and fast SSD.. Fast and low noise system 8)

trxman
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Post by trxman » Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:38 am

just to justify that thos F2 are reliable and I'll buy 12 of them :)

mark19891989
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Location: UK

Post by mark19891989 » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:32 am

KuniD wrote:[UK] Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5Tb - £79.99 Delivered (eBuyer)


I've just ordered 2 for my server :)
sorry to dig up an old thread

i have been planing on ordering 2 of these for my server from same place as you have.

how have you found them, whats the seak noise, and idle noise like,

have you felt it nessesarly to soft mount them, or standard mount.

thanks if you reply, mark :D

roadie
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Location: Liverpool, UK

Post by roadie » Tue Oct 06, 2009 2:32 am

Pretty sure I'll pick one of these up to replace a full 320Gb Samsung F1. I just need to make the decision whether I want to cull a load of data to postpone things for a little while. Soft mounted in an Antec Solo should mean the drive will be very, very quiet, like the F1.

tuuleveski
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Post by tuuleveski » Sat Nov 21, 2009 12:05 pm

JazzJackRabbit wrote:Good news is I just happened to have WD10EACS 00D6B0 and HD154UI laying around. Both are three platter drives and both have 5400RPM speed. I also just happened to have Antec MX-1 enclosure lying around, I unplugged the fan and tested both in open air.

That's as far as the good news go. Bad news is that there really isn't much that difference between two drives to make a clear winner. They are just too close sound volume and sound quality wise. In my case, subjectively speaking, I preferred HD154UI noise because it was smoother. The WD10EACS that I tested had some sort of secondary higher pitch noise to the sound and it was the sole reason I preferred Samsung over WD. It was a very faint high pitch tone, but it was there nonetheless.

Overall I don't think it will matter which drive you will choose. We're fortunate enough to see a revival of 5400RPM drives and fortunate enough that all of them are very quiet.

Your choice may be decided by secondary factors. I've never experienced idle parking with my WD10EACS, but some users have it, and it annoys them. Also both WD10EACS and HD154UI make calibration sound when first turned on, but Samsung one is MUCH louder and longer. If you will keep your drive in external enclosure and if you will set windows to spin it down often, the starting up sound may be annoying to you.
I have the Antec MX-1 enclosure and WD10EAC drive in it. It is the noisiest component of my system, the drive is very audible. Maybe it's gone bad or maybe I never noticed it before I recently quieted down my PC. Now I was thinking about getting 1.5 TB EcoGreen since the 500 GB F2EG that I bought is very quiet. But reading this made me second guess. Can you tell which drive, WD10EAC or HD154UI, has lower vibration and which one has lower temperatures?

SleepyBum
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Location: Los Angeles, CA

Post by SleepyBum » Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:10 pm

Alright... I bought these drives back in August and was too lazy to write up on it, so I'm finally I'm getting to it.

I purchased one from newegg and then another from Fry's when they had them on sale in October. The newegg one is Made in Korean 2009.07, the Fry's one is Made in China 2009.08. Both perform and sound pretty similar.

Image

The HD154UI is definitely louder than the 1TB HD103SI. The extra platter adds some more resonance noise, and a little more vibration. Also, the seeks were very audible.

Image

It makes the very distinct seek/chug noise when starting up. I also noticed it does this about every 50 minutes or so, even when in use, in the middle of copying a file or during a full format. Don't know if it's some kind of wear leveling or maintenance algorithm.

Like I said before, the seeks are very audible grrr-grrr sound. I saw in the HD features utility that the AAM was set to performance mode 256 by default. I set this to silent (128), and the seek noise is much better. Still audible, but a lot more muffled.

I'm using a pair of these in a RAID 1 array. They are fairly quiet after the AAM setting, but definitely not as quiet as the 1TB models. I'm using these for NAS server/storage purpose, so they're fine. But for HTPC/silent purposes, stick to the 500GB or 1TB models.

Image

No problems with the reallocated sector count for the drives I got.

Csimbi
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Location: EU

Post by Csimbi » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:10 am

SleepyBum wrote:HD features utility
What is this and where does one get it?
Thank you.

SleepyBum
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Location: Los Angeles, CA

Post by SleepyBum » Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:55 am

Csimbi wrote:
SleepyBum wrote:HD features utility
What is this and where does one get it?
Thank you.
I've been using the Hitachi Feature Tool to set the AAM status in drive. Works for Samsung, Western Digital, etc... Does not work for Seagate because they have removed the AAM feature from all their drives.

You need to find version 2.12 of this utility, because they removed the AAM feature in the newest version.
Features in Version 2.13

* Removed the function of acoustic management.

Csimbi
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Post by Csimbi » Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:38 am

Got my batch today. Eight HD145UIs.
Done the read/write benchmarks using HD Tune Pro 3.50 trial.
I tested all disks without initializing/formatting/whatever.
Here are the read results:

Code: Select all

                      1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8
Transfer rate min.    53.0    51.4    49.0    48.2    51.8    51.4    51.4    50.4
Transfer rate max.    107.1   107.2   107.0   107.3   107.1   107.2   107.1   107.3
Transfer rate avg.    86.7    86.1    84.4    83.2    86.3    85.7    85.4    86.4
Access time           21.3    16.7    19.9    16.4    14.1    13.8    20.0    17.8
Burst rate            150.4   151.6   153.0   153.0   152.9   152.1   152.4   152.4
Here are the write results:

Code: Select all

                      1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8
Transfer rate min.    52.2    47.3    45.7    45.2    51.4    51.8    50.9    50.3
Transfer rate max.    116.1   118.3   115.4   117.5   119.3   114.7   112.1   115.6
Transfer rate avg.    83.3    84.5    82.4    80.5    84.2    84.0    83.6    84.3
Access time           20.8    18.9    17.1    16.9    14.0    13.8    15.5    18.0
Burst rate            152.4   152.6   152.9   153.0   152.6   152.7   151.6   152.9
Next, I used the Hitachi Feature Tool are recommended by SleepyBum above, enabled the AAM and set it to 128.
Here are the read results again, with AAM@128:

Code: Select all

                      1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8
Transfer rate min.    53.5    51.4    49.0    48.2    51.8    51.4    50.8    50.4
Transfer rate max.    107.0   107.2   107.2   107.3   107.0   107.5   107.1   107.3
Transfer rate avg.    86.8    86.1    84.4    83.3    86.4    85.7    85.2    86.5
Access time           16.9    17.1    16.5    15.5    15.2    15.3    15.5    15.4
Burst rate            152.6   152.9   153.0   153.2   152.9   152.8   151.5   152.9
There is no surprise about the transfer rates being almost identical - acoustic management is about seeking.
The results of the seek times are surprising though - most seek times actually decreased. There are two reasons I can think of:
- the inaccuracy in the measurements
- the drives have warmed up (tests began at ~20C and ended about 27-29C)
Anyone?

Is there a more accurate tool than HD Tune to measure seek times (one that would measure the same value every time I repeat the test on the same drive)? Thank you.

PS.
Screen shots of the tests are available on request - it's about 1.4megs, PNG, just PM me if you want them.
Made a 600DPI scan of the drive, too - that's a 5megs JPG.
Last edited by Csimbi on Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:10 am, edited 5 times in total.

Zed Lopez
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Post by Zed Lopez » Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:53 am

I received a 1.5TB Samsung F2. With the reports of problems with it, I spent 2 days running badblocks on it, which turned up no bad blocks at all. Haven't tried any speed tests.

grandpatzer
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Post by grandpatzer » Wed Feb 17, 2010 5:40 pm

I bought a External Verbatim Harddrive, it has this harddrive in it.

Let me tell you it is wery noisy, whenever it's on it's much noisier than my laptop.

I never tested it for bad sectors maybe I should do that, it's going to take 24h as it is USB connected.

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