Samsung single-platter 250GB drive

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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nafets
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Post by nafets » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:32 pm

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QuietOC
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Post by QuietOC » Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:53 pm

zzombi wrote:Great thread, given that single platter F1s or 320GB WDs are yet to come this drive looks interesting. Is this HD250HJ really the currrent holy grail of the silent pc enthusiast, with low noise/temps and yet good performance?

Could someone post some benchmark numbers? Even better a hdtach or hdtune graph.

And if it is 7200rpm instead how can it get such amazing wattage? Either way looks uncanny.
It certainly seems to be the cheapest 250GB single platter.

There are hdtune hdtach results of it online. One I saw had a 13.58MB/s minimum speed, so something was amiss. Maximum was 102.5MB/s so it actually looks to be faster than 7200rpm. The similar 250GB single platter P7K500 is slightly faster at real apps (6279 PCMark05 Diskmarks compared to 6168 for the Samsung) but slower on the synthetics.

zzombi
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Post by zzombi » Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:42 pm

Thanks guys. This is almost as good as the F1s, so it's very likely a 7200rpm drive.

The Hitachi P7K500 250GB is 7200rpm and equally impressive in consumption (3.3W for PATA), so I guess these hdds use newish very efficient motors?! The Samsung wins at noise though, at least on paper. It looks there's no need to rush about SSDs :-)

PS and the hd250hj has no hutil issues that I heard off too

locoloko
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Post by locoloko » Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:55 am

How about the Samsung T166 HD252KJ

This is supposed to have a larger cache, but otherwise seems identical on paper - and the 2 drives cost the same where i live.

Does anybody know the difference in performance and acoustics if any.
Any thoughts?


Edit: Seems like the T166 is a 2 platter design.

kel
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Post by kel » Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:09 am

Sounds very interesting - think i'll pick up a hd250hj later today, they seem to go for around 80$ around here atm...currently using an older 320g seagate that's an absolute nightmare in terms of vibrations...

zzombi
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Post by zzombi » Fri Mar 28, 2008 8:31 pm

80? How about less than 35E? What worries me are reliability reports of the Spinpoint F1 series, albeit more platters. Beware of the 251 and 252kj models, apparently not s250 series, ie 250GB platters.

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/?fs=hd250hj&in=

Felger Carbon
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Post by Felger Carbon » Fri Mar 28, 2008 10:20 pm

zzombi wrote:What worries me are reliability reports of the Spinpoint F1 series...
The F1 series puts 333G on one platter, while the Samsung HD250HJ puts 250G on one platter. That's a generation older technology, and should by now be vanilla tech and hence reliable.

zzombi
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Post by zzombi » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:02 am

"The F1 series puts 333G on one platter"

The 750GB F1 has 250GB platters.

BTW, I can buy HD200HJ for a good price. Does anyone know whether it's a full platter or a short stroker? Could find no hdtach/hdtune graph on this one, so please, anyone :-)

The tell tale sign of the good disks is the weight: only 463g!

andyb
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Post by andyb » Sat Mar 29, 2008 6:12 pm

I dont think that Samsung make any short stroke drives.

Even if they did they would still use a full sized physical platter but the inside tracks would not be used.


Andy

zzombi
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Post by zzombi » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:10 pm

"Even if they did they would still use a full sized physical platter but the inside tracks would not be used."

As a result the stroke of the heads is shortened. That's what I mean by short stroked.
A short radius disk sounds interesting for noise benefits, but I haven't heard of it in 3.5" 7200rpm form.

A hdtune graph would shed light on HD200HJ being just a 200GB density platter, as the max read speed would be decreased vs HD250HJ.

mkawa
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Post by mkawa » Sun Mar 30, 2008 1:57 am

250hjs are not particularly expensive...

nafets
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Post by nafets » Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:51 am

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andyb
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Post by andyb » Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:06 am

Just like chip fabs, they have older factories that make the top end 166GB per platter drives (obviously now old), and that factory will then get a re-fit and new machinery and will then start making the new 500GB per platter models (obviously not yet).

Basically its cheaper to re-fit a factory and get it to make the same drives until they are obsolete and then move it on to making new stuff rather than re-fit them regularly.

Samsungs new line will last a lot longer than the competition as they have a head start in capacity, so it will take longer before they are obsolete.

I also believe that when Samsung created the F1 line they decided to use the old 250GB platters and just add a few models to their lineup, which in theory means that the T166 range wont last that much longer as the new range includes the best selling 500GB model.


Andy

zzombi
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Post by zzombi » Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:17 pm

Looks like HD200HJ has lower density platters than HD250HJ. The medium transfer rate is only 73MB/s.
Even if they used the same platters physically wouldn't it be easiest to factory format them with lower density, using a different firmware? And I don't think we can reformat them at 250 easily, for obvious reasons.
Funny is that international online prices for the 2 models are about the same, it's just that local stores make the 250 more expensive and harder to get.
There are even 160GB HJs, probably the same situation as with the castrated CPUs, just to fill more market niches.
As for the head start, WD announced 320GB platters too, the rest have 250GB, so I guess they kinda missed it with the huge launch delay.

Felger Carbon
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Post by Felger Carbon » Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:25 pm

zzombi wrote:"The F1 series puts 333G on one platter"

The 750GB F1 has 250GB platters.
I believe the one-platter 332G F1 has been sold (and sold out for the first run) and also reviewed in Europe. Perhaps I should have written that *some* F1s have ~333G platters? :wink:

edit: The very first feature is "up to 334G per platter" (official Samsung F1 site/data).

zzombi
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Post by zzombi » Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:49 am

I see what, you're saying. I agree that the lower the density the better the reliability for a given state of tech, but even the 750GB F1s, with lower densities, have some problems, perhaps a bit over say Seagate or Hitachi drives, which seem to be regarded as very reliable (Seagate even has 5 years warranty).
That doesn't quite fit with manufacturers' claims: unrecoverable read error rate gone from 1 sector in 1E14 to 1E15, from S250 to F1 series. Why if it's plain vanilla? Aren't both perpendicular recording?

zzombi
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new single platter Samsung

Post by zzombi » Fri Jun 27, 2008 6:58 am

HD252HJ

It's an F1 family member, ie 333GB/platter.

Higher consumption (5.32W vs 3.2W), same noise, 16MB cache, quicker (short stroke- 12ms access time), naturally faster (100MB/s average).

Any first hand experiences? Especially in comparison with other single platters, or the popular WD 640GB biplate. And is it free of hdutil errors?

_MarcoM_
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Post by _MarcoM_ » Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:44 am

Actually i have a HD501LJ model, for me it's quiet enough. But i need another one, 250GB. I will use it for OS disk under XP sp3, some gaming (but not exagerated). Low heat and quiet operations are welcome over performance. In your opinion is it better a Samsung 250GB, or an Hitachi p7k500?

zzombi
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Post by zzombi » Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:54 pm

"In your opinion is it better a Samsung 250GB..."

Yes. It is faster (larger platters, 333 vs 250), less noise and heat (only one platter), less cost.

However this is only how things SHOULD be, I have not tried them. I am a little worried by the multi platter F1s not so good reliability record.

Basically equal rpm and platter capacity drives should offer similar performance, but things like noise/vibration, consumption/temperature and the most important reliability should be checked. A notable exception is Seagate, which has some problems with multithreading, because of inneficient firmware logic.

And don't forget, HD250 and HD252 are different. WD is selling a 320GB monoplatter too, unfortunately it is somewhat slowed down from firmware to make ppl buy more expensive multiplatters instead.

PASware
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Post by PASware » Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:06 pm

My results with the HD250HJ

Image

Pretty fast, and very quiet (not suspended)

QuietOC
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Post by QuietOC » Thu Jul 03, 2008 7:09 am

zzombi wrote:Great thread, given that single platter F1s or 320GB WDs are yet to come this drive looks interesting. Is this HD250HJ really the currrent holy grail of the silent pc enthusiast, with low noise/temps and yet good performance?
My two-platter P7K500 is noticeably quieter than my HD250HJ. The Samsung sounds more like the WD6400AAKS. The single platter P7K500 is probably much quieter than the HD250HJ (but also much slower?)

zzombi
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Post by zzombi » Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:42 am

"My two-platter P7K500 is noticeably quieter than my HD250HJ. The Samsung sounds more like the WD6400AAKS."

Did you mount them suspended by elastic?
Do you have the 640AAKS too, and isn't HD250HJ a bit more silent?
The specs show the Samsung to be quieter than the Hitachi, though. There's also some variability to individual samples.

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