Which quiet, inexpensive SATA drive?

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:42 pm

viewtopic.php?p=489533 brought my attention to a SEAGATE BARRACUDA LP 5900.1 500GB that is cheap and worthy of comparison to the samsung 500GB drive.

toronado455 · Post by **toronado455** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:24 pm

whiic wrote:A couple of? Why do you need several? More than one computer?

If you have only one computer, buy a single 1000GB instead. It's better than having two 500-giggers. Except for performance. And if performance was not an issue with Barracuda IV, it would not be an issue with F2 Ecogreen, even if there was only one HDD installed.

For certain specific purposes, 2-4 HDDs may boost performance significantly but these purposes tend to limit to stuff like videoediting high-definition video. Separating sources files (1 or more, each from different drive) and destination (a drive not same as any of the sources) can significantly boost editing and exporting speed when dealing with uncompressed or losslessly compressed (non-CPU bottlenecked) videostreams.

Other than that (home theater, gaming, web surfing, 3D modeling, gaming, whatever) you could use just a single drive. Superior caching algorithms and the fact that F2 EG has 32MB of cache instead of 2MB(?) of your old Barracuda should make real-life performance with just one HDD a non-issue for 99% of purposes.

Thanks. I use my PC as DAW. So I like to have the project files on a separate disk from the OS. I think it improves performance. But I've never really evaluated it scientifically. What do you think?

Shamgar · Post by **Shamgar** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:43 am

dhanson865 wrote:Ordinarily I wouldn't suggest it as a cheap drive but right now the Samsung drive seems to be in high demand and the price has been distorted.

Okay, everybody start rubbishing the Samsungs. Hopefully, then, the demand drops and so does the price.

toronado455 · Post by **toronado455** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 2:02 pm

Shamgar wrote: Okay, everybody start rubbishing the Samsungs. Hopefully, then, the demand drops and so does the price.

Rubbishing. OK I'm learning to speak Aussie. Here we say "trashing".

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:08 am

Shamgar wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:Ordinarily I wouldn't suggest it as a cheap drive but right now the Samsung drive seems to be in high demand and the price has been distorted.
Okay, everybody start rubbishing the Samsungs. Hopefully, then, the demand drops and so does the price.

bought a 500G Eco from ZZF for US$50. Free shipping from Cali and I got it in two and half days.
The drive itself is fine. With Vista installed I can't it to function as a boot drive in two different computers, but the info is there for a data drive. I now believe it to be user error, but I can't figure out what I did wrong. I'll play around with it a little more.

toronado455 · Post by **toronado455** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:23 pm

Greg F. wrote:
Shamgar wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:Ordinarily I wouldn't suggest it as a cheap drive but right now the Samsung drive seems to be in high demand and the price has been distorted.
Okay, everybody start rubbishing the Samsungs. Hopefully, then, the demand drops and so does the price.
bought a 500G Eco from ZZF for US$50. Free shipping from Cali and I got it in two and half days.
The drive itself is fine. With Vista installed I can't it to function as a boot drive in two different computers, but the info is there for a data drive. I now believe it to be user error, but I can't figure out what I did wrong. I'll play around with it a little more.

Hey glad to hear you believe the drive is OK now. Let us know what happens.

Were you happy with ZZF packaging?

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:21 pm

Were you happy with ZZF packaging?"

Very much so. It was in a clear plastic box which itself was tightly packed into a Styrofoam box with a pull out tray. This was all packed in a brown cardboard box with ample Styrofoam "peanuts". I don't think anyone could expect it to be packed any better. The order and checkout process was simple and the tracking easy. I can't think of one thing that ZZF could have done better.
I like Newegg and have been a good customer of theirs and will be in the future. Today I bought the $55 Biostar 785G board. Free shipping and no rebates. But I do think it would be good for Newegg to have to compete with someone.

toronado455 · Post by **toronado455** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:59 am

I stopped by my local MicroCenter today and saw they have both the 500GB and 1TB Samsung EcoGreen F2 OEM drives out on the shelf. The sale price is $60 for the 500GB per the in-store flyer. Not sure if you can get that price online, but it's only a $5 difference.

I'm probably still going to order from ZZF though.

toronado455 · Post by **toronado455** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 12:05 pm

Finally got my drives from ZZF. Can't get my ASUS P4PE MB to work with them though. Does anyone know if the HD502HI is backward compatible with SATA 150? Do you have to jumper them to put them into legacy mode when connecting to a SATA 150 controller? Sorry if this is a bit OT for this thread.

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 3:59 pm

toronado455 wrote:Finally got my drives from ZZF. Can't get my ASUS P4PE MB to work with them though. Does anyone know if the HD502HI is backward compatible with SATA 150? Do you have to jumper them to put them into legacy mode when connecting to a SATA 150 controller? Sorry if this is a bit OT for this thread.

Recent Samsung drives don't seem to work with older ASUS motherboards in AHCI mode. Try switching to IDE. My F2 disk wouldn't work with my P5WDH board until I disabled AHCI.

toronado455 · Post by **toronado455** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 3:27 pm

cmthomson wrote:Try switching to IDE.

How do you mean?

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 6:19 pm

toronado455 wrote:
cmthomson wrote:Try switching to IDE.
How do you mean?

Assuming your board is indeed an ASUS MB, in the BIOS main menu there is an entry near the bottom called IDE Configuration. In the submenu, select Configure SATA as Standard IDE.

toronado455 · Post by **toronado455** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 8:12 pm

cmthomson wrote:
toronado455 wrote:
cmthomson wrote:Try switching to IDE.
How do you mean?
Assuming your board is indeed an ASUS MB, in the BIOS main menu there is an entry near the bottom called IDE Configuration. In the submenu, select Configure SATA as Standard IDE.

It's an ASUS P4PE and there is no option like that in the BIOS. I'm pretty sure the only way to use SATA drives on this board is as some sort of RAID array. I've tried enabling the RAID but it doesn't work. I think the problem is that the RAID chip doesn't see the Samsung drives because they are 3.0 speed and the chip is only SATA 150. There is a patch from Samsung that changes the drives into 150 mode, but I'd rather find another way to go. Maybe a PCI SATA controller. Or just wait until I've got a newer motherboard that supports SATA 3.0 speed to use these drives.