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

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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

Post by halcyon » Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:53 am

Samsung announced it's F3 series:

- 500GB per platter
- 1 platter 500GB HD (HD502HJ) is out now
- 1TB 2-platter drive (HD103SJ) out in August
- 7200 RPM, 16/32MB buffers
- SilentSeek(TM) and NoiseGuard(TM) included, fwiw
- 500GB model listed in EU shops and goes for c. 45€

Link: http://www.hitechreview.com/it-products ... ter/13563/

Anybody picked up one yet?

EDIT: Model numbers and link added
Last edited by halcyon on Wed Jul 29, 2009 3:53 am, edited 3 times in total.

Shamgar
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Post by Shamgar » Wed Jul 29, 2009 3:06 am

Is there a link for it? I can't find it on Samsung's site.
Spec's definitely look promising. Wonder if it's quiet? We'll have to wait and see. Samsung drives always provoke lots of controversy here and elsewhere. :)

aztec
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Post by aztec » Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:45 pm


Shamgar
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Post by Shamgar » Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:06 pm

Thanks for the link.
I like how Samsung is upfront about their platter size/number and rotational speeds. Unlike some other company.

whiic
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Post by whiic » Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:59 am

333GB/pl Ecogreen 5400rpm => F1
333GB/pl Spinpoint 7200rpm => F1

500GB/pl Ecogreen 5400rpm => F2
500GB/pl Spinpoint 7200rpm => F3 ??!?!

So, they'll break the naming convention there. I wonder if next 5400rpm drive will be F4 or F3. If it's F3, with bigger than 500GB platters, the generetion code no longer reveals the platter density used.

Shamgar
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Post by Shamgar » Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:20 am

Maybe their Marketing Dept. decided that F2 is already synonymous with EcoGreen 5400RPM. F1 was not very well favoured and lots of users reported DOA. So with F3 being two generations forward, they hope users can forget and "leave in the past" bad memories of F1. I have no problem from what I can see from them naming new 500GB platter 7200RPM series 'F3'. In future, it may cause confusion, but for now, let's hope that it will be a good drive.

Wibla
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Post by Wibla » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:08 am

Do you have any more data on the F1 DOA's? I have used and recommended those drive since they came out, with almost no problems whatsoever except the 750GB version.

JamieG
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Post by JamieG » Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:26 pm

I did have an issue with the first Spinpoint F1 1Tb drive I got - somehow when I went to install it it would only format to 32mb, the size of its cache :shock:. I returned it for a second drive of the same model which is working fine.

Shamgar
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Post by Shamgar » Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:11 pm

Wibla wrote:Do you have any more data on the F1 DOA's? I have used and recommended those drive since they came out, with almost no problems whatsoever except the 750GB version.
Not hard data in the sense of a detailed analysis. From newegg user reports (make of it what you wish) and the lack of sales of F1 locally where I live (perhaps due to other reasons also) led me to believe that F1 did have some problems. Not unusual for HDDs, but enough to keep some users away from it. As with most hardware, the ~5% failures are enough to convince some that it is a 'dud', when for others the same product can be perfectly fine and capable. I also use and recommend Samsung (I have Spinpoint mobile and T series desktop) but sometimes their products are a bit hard to source locally.

Kaleid
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Post by Kaleid » Fri Jul 31, 2009 3:52 am

JamieG wrote:I did have an issue with the first Spinpoint F1 1Tb drive I got - somehow when I went to install it it would only format to 32mb, the size of its cache :shock:. I returned it for a second drive of the same model which is working fine.
Restore factory Hard Drive Capacity When HDD Shows up as 32MB
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 39&page=12

Haven't had that problem, at least not yet but this guide might have helped.

blunden
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Post by blunden » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:17 pm

Why do they not sell a 3 platter 1.5 TB one in the F3 series? 1 TB feels small for a newly released drive now days. :(

JamieG
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Post by JamieG » Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:46 pm

Kaleid wrote:
JamieG wrote:I did have an issue with the first Spinpoint F1 1Tb drive I got - somehow when I went to install it it would only format to 32mb, the size of its cache :shock:. I returned it for a second drive of the same model which is working fine.
Restore factory Hard Drive Capacity When HDD Shows up as 32MB
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 39&page=12

Haven't had that problem, at least not yet but this guide might have helped.
Thanks Kaleid! Guess my Google searching skills failed me when I was trying to find a solution to the problem before I RMA'd the drive. Cheers for the link.

line
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Post by line » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:11 pm

First benchmarks arrive! Someone has just posted this over at planet3dnow:

Image

Image

Image

http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/sho ... ?p=4005057

Matija
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Post by Matija » Thu Aug 06, 2009 3:20 pm

Hey, that looks really fast! If the firmware is okay (the F1 was somewhat disappointing in that regard), this could be an awesome drive... But let's wait for some proper benchmarking instead of synthetics.

Shamgar
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Post by Shamgar » Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:10 pm

That's probably the best performance from a 7200RPM drive I have seen so far. But I wonder if it's at the expense of noise. Let's hope not. This looks like a serious competitor to the WD Blue and Black drives.

Knowing the problems SPCR has had in the past with obtaining Samsung drives for review, I don't think we will be seeing reliable acoustic tests soon. Hopefully, they do get one in for review as this will be another great follow up to the F2 EcoGreen 5400RPM.

line
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Post by line » Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:20 am

I found another review here:

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/sh ... p?t=542829

The F3 500 is compared directly with the F1 320, and returns about the same result in the 4K Random Read test in CrystalDiskMark (0.78 MB/s). Seeing as the F1's weakness lied in multitasking and server patterns, I don't suppose this suggests Samsung has not addressed it?

frostedflakes
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Post by frostedflakes » Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:33 pm

Just bought a 1TB F1, probably should have waited for this. :P

I wonder why Samsung is only offering drives up to 1TB, though. They could easily do a three platter 1.5TB drive or even a four platter 2TB drive like WD has. Hell, the old Hitachi 1TB drive was five platter wasn't it? That's probably kind of pushing how many platters you can reliably fit in a 3.5" enclosure, though.

Wibla
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Post by Wibla » Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:39 am

They have a 3-platter 1.5TB drive, its called the F2 1.5TB... but its not available everywhere yet... grmf

marius7
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Post by marius7 » Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:32 pm

Here are my results

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image
Last edited by marius7 on Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Zeroignite
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Post by Zeroignite » Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:47 pm

Just based on the HDTune data, it looks a whole lot better than Seagate's 500GB/platter drive-- that one has seek times of 17 or so ms.

line
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Post by line » Thu Aug 13, 2009 3:07 am

The 500GB Seagate 7200.12 has an OK seek time of ~14.5ms. It's the 1TB variant that was being slower (e.g. here) and I don't know why.

Wibla
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Post by Wibla » Thu Aug 13, 2009 4:35 am

Shamgar wrote: Not hard data in the sense of a detailed analysis. From newegg user reports (make of it what you wish) and the lack of sales of F1 locally where I live (perhaps due to other reasons also) led me to believe that F1 did have some problems. Not unusual for HDDs, but enough to keep some users away from it. As with most hardware, the ~5% failures are enough to convince some that it is a 'dud', when for others the same product can be perfectly fine and capable. I also use and recommend Samsung (I have Spinpoint mobile and T series desktop) but sometimes their products are a bit hard to source locally.
I dont trust newegg reviews further than i can toss it, but thats just me..

I've been trying to source Samsung F2 1.5TB here in norway for the last few months, but only pixmania carries them... imho I think samsung plays the "where do we ship to first" game abit weird..

lobuni
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Post by lobuni » Fri Aug 14, 2009 12:37 am

marius7 wrote:Here are my results
...
How noisy is it?

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Post by CA_Steve » Fri Aug 14, 2009 5:37 am


halcyon
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Post by halcyon » Sat Aug 29, 2009 3:24 am


falcon26
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Post by falcon26 » Sat Aug 29, 2009 6:16 pm

So what is the bottom line. Is the F3 500GB faster and quieter than the F1 320GB? Their both about the same price.

Kaleid
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Post by Kaleid » Sun Aug 30, 2009 12:59 am

So far I haven't heard a quiet 7200rpm drive. But place it in a soft mounted quiet drive and the whole thing changes.

jimmyzaas
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Post by jimmyzaas » Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:20 am

Shamgar wrote:
Wibla wrote:Do you have any more data on the F1 DOA's? I have used and recommended those drive since they came out, with almost no problems whatsoever except the 750GB version.
Not hard data in the sense of a detailed analysis. From newegg user reports (make of it what you wish) and the lack of sales of F1 locally where I live (perhaps due to other reasons also) led me to believe that F1 did have some problems. Not unusual for HDDs, but enough to keep some users away from it. As with most hardware, the ~5% failures are enough to convince some that it is a 'dud', when for others the same product can be perfectly fine and capable. I also use and recommend Samsung (I have Spinpoint mobile and T series desktop) but sometimes their products are a bit hard to source locally.
In my case it was 100% failure with Samsung. First with the 750GB model, Second with the 1TB model. The thing about Samsung is there is no advanced RMA, so you have to buy a new one just to recover your data to. The 750GB failure prompted the purchase of the 1TB model. The 1TB failure prompted the purchase of the WD 1TB Black.

Considering they were cooled by 2x92mm fans in a solo with direct airflow to them, it shows really poor reliability.

This is the reason why my Samsungs are now used for things I don't care much about and all my important stuff goes on WD Blacks. They are louder and vibrate more, but it's been around the same amount of time and neither one has failed. Noise is important but I value my data alot more.

These F3 drives look stunning but I need alot more reassurance before I get another Sammy

falcon26
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Post by falcon26 » Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:02 pm

I'm tempted to sell my WD 320GB drive and pick up the F3 500. I just wish their was some more reviews out their...

QuietOC
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Post by QuietOC » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:09 pm

Talk about bad timing I just got a 500GB F3 for $55 (missed the sale), and it is nice, but Newegg now has the 1TB F3 for $90.

Anyone interested in a lightly used WD10EADS?

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