Samsung F3 series - 500GB per platter - 7200RPM - 500GB/1TB

[NT]

The issue for me is that there are rumors that the F3 has a high failure rate

Opps, just ordered a Samsung 500GB F3EG

I wouldn't worry, rumours don't count for anything on the internetz nowadays.
Fully corroborated evidence is all that matters.....

[kaotikfunk]

The issue for me is that there are rumors that the F3 has a high failure rate

Opps, just ordered a Samsung 500GB F3EG

Well, I continued digging, and the main threads with people complaining are on RAID dropouts. Some were attributed to Intel Matrix drivers, some weren't. I'm probably going to order one if they become available again. It doesn't sound like the Seagate 7200.11 failure rates for example. The biggest issue is that there aren't enough good data out there on the F3's yet

[Nice Marmot]

Where did the drives come from BTW? newegg? In that case you can probably blame shipping damage, their harddrive packaging is horrible.

Any recommendations for stores that do a better job protecting shipped HDDS? Looking to pick up an HD103SJ. ZZF has it for a good price, any idea if they'd be more reliable?

[QuietOC]

Any recommendations for stores that do a better job protecting shipped HDDS? Looking to pick up an HD103SJ. ZZF has it for a good price, any idea if they'd be more reliable?

I haven't had problems with drives from Newegg. The Samsung HD502HJ I ordered from them back in August for $54.99 is working just fine. I ordered my Samsung HD103SJ from Superbiiz (eWiz) two weeks ago for $76.53 shipped. It came from Florida in a smaller box than Newegg uses, but it tested out fine. Newegg generally ships from a location closer to me. I wonder if shipment damage is more caused by local delivery people. Maybe have it delivered to your work address.

[NT]

http://techreport.com/articles.x/18467/9
Be interesting to see how the new F3's compare...
He's planning follow-up reviews for it and the Deskstar.

I personally don't give a hoot about noise....
But i know many on this forum are sensitive to that sort of thing

[line]

I've bought 3 of these so far: 2 x 500 and 1 x 1TB.

I haven't compared them directly against one another but my impression is that the 1TB generates more seek noise through vibration.

I use the 1TB drive myself and I noticed that the SMART value for "Write Error Rate" has become non-zero and is gradually increasing. It was 5, then 6, and is now 9. Other parameters are good so I don't know if I should be worried. Does anyone else see a non-zero value in this field on a healthy drive?

[seoulman]

Long and highly informative post on the F3!

All this leaves me very curious: How are your F3 500s/HD502HJs doing after months of use? (Apart from Geobrick's fail.)

Is (low) vibration and noise still outstanding for a 7,200 rpm drive? Satisfied?

[geobrick]

Long and highly informative post on the F3!

All this leaves me very curious: How are your F3 500s/HD502HJs doing after months of use? (Apart from Geobrick's fail.)

Is (low) vibration and noise still outstanding for a 7,200 rpm drive? Satisfied?

The failure I had could have been caused by the Intel Raid drivers.

I havn't had any problem with the replacement drive or the other three original drives since upgrading to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers (I'm using 9.5.4.1001).

[NeilBlanchard]

I have two 500GB F3 drives, and so far so good. One had more vibration than the other, but both are quiet at idle, and only occasionally can I hear some seek noise -- it is muted though.

[Jay_S]

The F3's are out of stock everywhere I shop (Newegg, Amazon, Provantage, etc.). Something brewing? Anyone have any insight on the shortage?

[seoulman]

F3s (both EG and 7,200 rpm) seem to be available across Scandinavia and Germany at least.

Dunno? Demand probably outstrips supply momentarily in the US? These are popular drives.

Thanks, Neil, for your feedback on vibration!

[Nighthog]

I just bought a 500Gb F3 to replace my System drive in my computer and then migrate the old hdd to the orginal old computer I bought that hdd for, the computer is for the use from my parents.
I had to setup my old computer back from collecting dust as the computer they had used was sent elsewhere back to it's original owner.

Well anyway this Samsung F3 is quite remarkable compared to the drive it replaced.

The old drive was a maxtor 9or10 200Gb Sata1. I also have two seagate 7200.10 320Gb drives as storage.

The Samsung is so much quieter than the Maxtor was. The Seagates weren't as loud but the Samsung beats them by a bunch if they start to rattle around.
It's loads cooler in temperature which I appreciate much. I have a huge need off getting my computer overall cooler.

The performance? Well throughput is much better. Though I haven't really noticed a difference using my computer in every day usage. Some "feeling" if faster load times but not something I've really got a "aha" notice off.

Noise? Well it's practically soundless in my system by itself but there are lots of other parts around that make noise instead. At least I got away from the loudest rattlings the older Maxtor had. Some subtle rattling can be heard at times from the Seagates. But the Samsung is dead silent.

And about availability... There is a great availability as far as I could tell at the online stores I checked here in Sweden.

So I'm happy whit this purchase. Going for the slighly more silent Seagate 7200.12 500Gb drive would have been pointless I realize now after hearing the Samsung. The slower access time the 7200.12 has is to huge a trade off for that little more silence and cooler drive.

[tramall]

I have one 1TB version (7200rpm) , and whatever whoever says , I say : It is LOUD . Yes , it is fast , but loud.

[losdrivare]

Got my new HD103SJ just before the holiday and pretty much finished installing everything and copying files etc. This is my mini-review.

Did some crystalmark comparison to see how much an upgrade this would make from the HD510LJ I was replacing, also throwing in my storage drive (WD15EARS) for good measure:

........... HD501LJ ........... WD15EARS ...... HD103SJ (AAM disabled)
........... Read Write ..... Read . Write ..... Read . Write
Seq..... 85.32 85.78 .... 66.20 . 65.23 .... 145.40 143.30
512K... 38.06 50.19 .... 21.80 . 38.19 .... 50.06 65.04
4K...... 0.544 1.035 ..... 0.258 . 0.759 .... 0.603 1.206
QD32.. 0.651 1.025 .... 0.421 . 0.748 .... 0.749 1.222

The new drive cut down my boot time by some 10 seconds with Tiny7. I always make a separate 32 GB first partition for OS and apps, since drives are faster in the beginning of the disk.

My HD103SJ is noticeably less hot than the HD501LJ, it also has less vibration and spin whine. Seeks were louder at default with AAM disabled and very noticeable even from within a Scythe Silent Drive, constant ticking sounds when torrent was running.

With AAM set to quiet, seeks are only noticeable from the HD103SJ if I put my head next to the computer, they are unaudiable from 0.5 meter away. This with the drive in Scythe Silent Drive enclosure. Now I can run torrent without annoyance. So, for me AAM made a clear difference.

[SebRad]

Hi, I had a 1TB F1 and have since moved to a 1TB F3 due to bad sectors re-appearing on for a 3rd time on the F1. Since got an F1 back from RMA and did bit back to back listening in a reasonably quiet environment. I would say for idle noise there is nothing really to choose with the samples I have. Both are decently quiet and barely noticeable once I have them in my Scythe Quiet Drive. The F3 may have slightly louder seeks but nothing much.
Not really noticed much performance increase, running Windows 7 x64, either.

Not sure if was covered earlier in this thread but I’ve found Alex Feinman’s ISO Recorder to be very useful when dealing with ISO, like Samsungs HDD tools. It can be had for XP, Vista and Windows 7 in 32 and 64bit versions and just installs very lightweight as a “right clickâ€

[agaver]

Hi guys and girls,

Just wondering someone actually tried these new short stroking technique on the new f3 hard drive may be 1 hd configuration or just 2 hard drives?
by short stroking I'm referring to:
Accelerate Your Hard Drive By Short Stroking
that shows in tom's hardware forums...

thanks a lot.

[mkk]

Check out the most recent thread on this forum that covered short stroking: viewtopic.php?t=54594

It's an ancient thingie that pops up every few years because some web writer didn't quite understand what it was that he just stumbled upon. The effect is the same for all harddrives.

[valnar]

I'm looking to buy a 2TB Samsung F3. Does anyone know why they aren't for sale anymore?

[subaqua]

Hi guys and girls,

Just wondering someone actually tried these new short stroking technique on the new f3 hard drive may be 1 hd configuration or just 2 hard drives?
by short stroking I'm referring to:

thanks a lot.

I did a heap of test on this with the 500Gb Seagate 7200.12 drive. I found Short-stroking gives no performance gain whats so ever.

All its doing is restricting the data to the fastest part of the drive, so your better of just creating a small partition and it will do 100% the same thing.

[agaver]

Thanks Subaqua for the tests