Samsung P120 200GB SATA tested and ...............

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Fri May 06, 2005 4:04 pm

I got mine yesterday, very late, i did a few quick tests, it has a Nidec motor, barely any vibrational noise, and a very very quiet seek noise - NOT inaudiable.

It's pretty quick considering I slowed it down to the quitest level using the Hitachi Tools.

More details to come.

I have HD Tach, check the sig for comparisons, or ask me to bench, but if you do plese give me a link.

Andy

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Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Fri May 06, 2005 6:01 pm

Nice, it's great to see that IBM made a good decision when they sold their HDD manufacturing (they certainly weren't doing a very good job).

Those "very, very quiet" seeks you mention....is that with suspension, sorbothane, grommets, hard-mounted, etc.? Thanks.

Derek Baker · Post by **Derek Baker** » Sat May 07, 2005 3:21 am

Where did the OP mention IBM?

mongobilly · Post by **mongobilly** » Sat May 07, 2005 4:05 am

The P120 is the latest Samsung drive!

dan · Post by **dan** » Sat May 07, 2005 7:15 am

cool, would you mind answering some questions about its noise?

what about idle noise? is there a whine? how quiet is it when it is not seeking?

thanks

andyb wrote:I got mine yesterday, very late, i did a few quick tests, it has a Nidec motor, barely any vibrational noise, and a very very quiet seek noise - NOT inaudiable.

It's pretty quick considering I slowed it down to the quitest level using the Hitachi Tools.

More details to come.

I have HD Tach, check the sig for comparisons, or ask me to bench, but if you do plese give me a link.

Andy

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Sat May 07, 2005 9:53 am

mongobilly wrote:The P120 is the latest Samsung drive!

hahahahaha

*goes to whack self in the head*

sorry, it was about 3:00 AM here when I posted that....

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sat May 07, 2005 11:30 am

I have managed to do a few HD Tach becnchmarks today, testing (not on my PC but one at work) the P120 200GB SATA, a Maxtor DM9+ 8MB 120GB PATA, and a Seagate 7200.7 2MB 80GB PATA.

The Maxtor has the highest average throughput by 1MB/s, the Seagate is a touch slower than the P120.

The Maxtor had the fastest seek times 14.7ms, the seagate was about 16ms, and the P120 was 17.4ms on the slowest quitest AAM setting of 128.
I also measured the samsungs seek times, on the fastest noisiest AAM setting of 255 it measured 16.2ms.
Just to test it out, I dissabled AAM and ran HDTach again, I cancelled the test before it even finished, it was just too loud, no where near as loud as the DM9 though.

The P120

FYI, the AAM setting didnt change the sequential read performance at all.

Noise however is not as low as I would have hoped, the Samsung, had less vibration, and less spindle noise than the Seagate it's replacing, but has a higher seek noise, slightly higher pitched than the seagates deep rumbling, and has less seek vibration, so one's miles may vary depending on their case and mounting, I will repeat the spindle noise, practically inaudiable, in my office (not particulary quiet, I could only hear the drive from about 2 inches away, whereas I could hear the Seagates from about 4 inches.

The seek noise within my Sonata, with the drive mounted in it's usual fashion (no suspension), the seek noise apears to be louder than the Seagate, and the pitch seems to have been reduced to a deeper more vibrational noise than when I was listening to it at work where it was placed on an antistatic bag on a couple of soft napkins on a wooden desk.

Another seek noise comparison, I now have my P120, and a PATA 200GB Seagate 7200.7, the seek noises appear to be very similar with if anything the Seagate being slightly quiter.

I havent yet tried suspension at all, I may try it at some point in the future, as I think it may reduce vibrational noise caused by seeking, due to not having the metal drive tray vibrating against the metal drive rack.

The real test is going to be tonight, when everything is very quiet, I will try a few different seek noise tests, downloads, NAV virus scan, general web browsing using mozilla, unfortunatley I dont have the 80GB Seagate in my machine to do a direct comparison with.

By the way, the above mentioned 80GB 7200.7 is the second quietest 7200.7 I have come accross, I found an identical drive made in China that was even quiter, I compared it to a 40GB Cuda IV (at my noisy office), they were indistinguishable by ear. So when I say the P120 is NOT as quiet as I hoped, it's the 3rd or 4th quietest drive I have ever heard, and thats saying something.

Andy

dan · Post by **dan** » Sat May 07, 2005 3:21 pm

well i'd like to hear the real test results.

where did you buy it and how much did you spend?

Ackelind · Post by **Ackelind** » Sat May 07, 2005 4:55 pm

I totally agree with that.

I just got a 200gb sata samsung p120, the idle noise and vibration is less than my DM9 sata but the seeks are clearly audible. I've enabled aam with winaam 1.8 but i dunno if it made any difference, i don't think this drive supports the "aam" that winaam offers.

It runs really cool compared to my DM9 though! they both are mounted in my barebone with no cooling at all (no fans, only natural convection in a tight place) and the samsung idled about 45 but the DM9 idles at 60 degrees or above!

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon May 09, 2005 11:58 am

More info for you.

Either my mind is going (very possible), or my Samsung is now Quiter than it was when I first tes....heard it.

It's short seeks, are, well, impressive is the only word that springs to mind, damned is another one. Damned impressive, definitley quiter than my 7200.7 whilst short seeking.

Also I have noticed that the faster long seeks are also quiter......... do hard drives have a break in period, surely not, especially for a drive with FDB's.

I am happy for now, suspension is the next thing on my list, followed by a quiter faster flowing back case fan, then a quiter PSU, silencing never ends it seems.

BTW I got the drive from www.komplett.co.uk for about £69 inc VAT

Andy

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Mon May 09, 2005 12:30 pm

Was the drive particularly cold when you first started it? Not sure what the weather is like around you right now, but if they've been shipped in somewhat cold weather (50F or below) they are noiser and slower for the first little while until they re-adjust to ambient.

But somebody with more knowledge on the subject will probably have a better answer to that.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue May 10, 2005 3:03 pm

It turned up at a decent temp, and then got run at work for a couple of hours.

However since my last post I believe that my drive has got even quieter, maybe they do have a break in period.

This drive is unbelievable, I can do a full drive virus scan in the middle of the night, and easily sleep through it, thats impressive, especially considering how quiet my PC is.

Just in-case someone missed the vibes, this drive is the best drive I have ever owned.

Andy

davidstone28 · Post by **davidstone28** » Thu May 12, 2005 2:13 am

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050427/index.html

Sanderman · Post by **Sanderman** » Thu May 12, 2005 6:21 am

andyb wrote:More info for you.

Either my mind is going (very possible), or my Samsung is now Quiter than it was when I first tes....heard it.

It's short seeks, are, well, impressive is the only word that springs to mind, damned is another one. Damned impressive, definitley quiter than my 7200.7 whilst short seeking.

Also I have noticed that the faster long seeks are also quiter......... do hard drives have a break in period, surely not, especially for a drive with FDB's.

I am happy for now, suspension is the next thing on my list, followed by a quiter faster flowing back case fan, then a quiter PSU, silencing never ends it seems.

BTW I got the drive from www.komplett.co.uk for about £69 inc VAT

Andy

Your mind is not going. I bought a Samsung 160 GB P80 a few weeks ago and was not impressed by the noise level out of the box (low but far from inaudible or even a whisper), but after a day or two it definitely quieted down quite a bit. Maybe it takes a while for the bearings to seat themselves or something?

Mariner · Post by **Mariner** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:24 am

I've a vague feeling that I read a post/article somewhere saying that the FDB of these types of drives does take a little while to 'wear in'. At least I think I remember reading something similar - could have been entirely my imagination, I suppose.

Kemokim · Post by **Kemokim** » Sat May 14, 2005 8:53 am

I just got my new sp 200 sata disc.

it is REALLY noisy compared to my old sp 160 sata..

i tried the hitaci tool to alter the aam settings, (it was disabled)
the tool has some sort of test feature, but even when i sat aam to max 128, the test didnt improve the noise levels, so either the hitachi tool's test feature doesnt work, or it doesnt alter the aam settings correct.

anyone who have this drive and has tested it where it works??

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sat May 14, 2005 3:56 pm

Yes.

AAM dissabled is the loudest, then highest AAM level (255).

AAM 128 is quitest.

As myself and otrher have pointed out, it will probably quieten down over then next few days.

Let us know your experiences.

Andy

dan · Post by **dan** » Thu May 19, 2005 9:21 am

hi,
which AAM utility did you use? how does the sp120 compare with a notebook drive, 2.5"? while it is "quiet", is it "silent" or "inaudible"?

andyb wrote:Yes.

AAM dissabled is the loudest, then highest AAM level (255).

AAM 128 is quitest.

As myself and otrher have pointed out, it will probably quieten down over then next few days.

Let us know your experiences.

Andy

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Fri May 20, 2005 8:07 am

Hiya Dan.

I used the Hitachi tool.

No 3.5" drive on the market compares to a good 2.5" drive. The only recent dealing with a notebook drive was the Seagate 40GB 5400RPM 2mb buffer Momentus.

The drive had less vibration than most notebook drives, it's seek were audiable at 3". In a case this drive would'nt even exist, especially if suspended.

My drive has slightly more vibration (Nidec motor) than a brand new P80 80GB JVC motor drive I used this morning, and it's seeks are slightly louder (but not a lot), however I only used the 80GB P80 for 20mins total, and it was sat next to a 10GB Maxtor with evil bearings, you wouldnt be able to hear a chainsaw over that drive, so my comparison to a P80 80GB is far from conclusive.

Andy

PS: I still havent got around to suspension, I will let you know how I do when I do.

dan · Post by **dan** » Sat May 21, 2005 3:11 pm

hi andy b

wel i once had an emachine m5310 and the toshiba 2.5" notebook 4200 rpm was "dead silent" not only was there no whine, i couldn't hear any sounds from the HD other than an occassional seek.

i briefly owned a samsung 3.5" desktop p80 nidec and while it was much quieter than a western digital 3.5" desktop, i could hear a "swoosh" and the seeks.

since silentpcreview recommends the samsung 2.5"notebook drive and at 5400 rpm should be faster than the toshiba 4200rpm drive, i think that's the way to "silence" unless of course the sata-2 samsung spinpoints are as quiet as a toshiba 4200rpm - including the "swoosh" sound of air across the platter.

rainfever · Post by **rainfever** » Tue May 24, 2005 12:45 pm

once again (I posted this same question about another drive somewhere in here) where can I find this drive? I am in the USA and use www.newegg.com (I noticed at least a few of you are European) but the largest capacity they carry is 160gig. I would prefer 300 gigs, but I’m not sure if having that extra platter in there would nullify the acoustic advantage I am seeking with this drive.

linkage please.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Tue May 24, 2005 1:59 pm

rainfever wrote:once again (I posted this same question about another drive somewhere in here) where can I find this drive? I am in the USA and use www.newegg.com (I noticed at least a few of you are European) but the largest capacity they carry is 160gig. I would prefer 300 gigs, but I’m not sure if having that extra platter in there would nullify the acoustic advantage I am seeking with this drive.

The P120 series does not appear to be available in the US yet.

250GB is the largest Samsung P120.

The 250GB Samsung has only two platters.

I believe all 300GB drives available are 3 platters. I know for a fact that the Seagate 7200.8 300GB has 3 platters.

Grubert · Post by **Grubert** » Fri May 27, 2005 4:05 am

Samsung labels their HD lines after their max capacity per platter. P120 has 120GB (well, actually 125GB) per platter, for a maximum of 250GB with two platters (on the SP2504C, still unavailable).

My new PC, which I'm picking up this weekend, will have an SP2004C. It's bound to beat my current Pentium II and its grinding sputtering slowly-dying-a-painful-death CPU fan.

dan · Post by **dan** » Fri May 27, 2005 8:43 pm

Grubert wrote:Samsung labels their HD lines after their max capacity per platter. P120 has 120GB (well, actually 125GB) per platter, for a maximum of 250GB with two platters (on the SP2504C, still unavailable).

My new PC, which I'm picking up this weekend, will have an SP2004C. It's bound to beat my current Pentium II and its grinding sputtering slowly-dying-a-painful-death CPU fan.

what is intriguing is the claim of
1- faster performance of the p120 over the p80
2- quieter accoustics of the p120 over the p80

madman2003 · Post by **madman2003** » Fri May 27, 2005 11:11 pm

dan wrote:
Grubert wrote:Samsung labels their HD lines after their max capacity per platter. P120 has 120GB (well, actually 125GB) per platter, for a maximum of 250GB with two platters (on the SP2504C, still unavailable).

My new PC, which I'm picking up this weekend, will have an SP2004C. It's bound to beat my current Pentium II and its grinding sputtering slowly-dying-a-painful-death CPU fan.
what is intriguing is the claim of
1- faster performance of the p120 over the p80
2- quieter accoustics of the p120 over the p80

1: increased data density will take care of that (there are ofcource more ways)

2: possibly only using nidec's (anyone seen a jvc p120 yet)

dan · Post by **dan** » Sat May 28, 2005 8:58 am

[/quote]

1: increased data density will take care of that (there are ofcource more ways)

2: possibly only using nidec's (anyone seen a jvc p120 yet)[/quote]

i wonder if there are other improvements (i.e noise guard silent seek fdb etc

i wonder how these drives compare to 2.5" notebook drives. samsung lists their notebook drive at 2.5 bels

winguy · Post by **winguy** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 11:19 am

Kemokim wrote: i tried the hitaci tool to alter the aam settings, (it was disabled)
the tool has some sort of test feature, but even when i sat aam to max 128, the test didnt improve the noise levels, so either the hitachi tool's test feature doesnt work, or it doesnt alter the aam settings correct.

what about using samsung's utility?

kesv · Post by **kesv** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 4:13 am

winguy wrote: what about using samsung's utility?

Shouldn't make any difference. The interface for accessing most hdd features is standard so the different utilities should interoperate. Now and then some manufacturers may break the specs though.

I have heard some comments that the hdd settings tool provided by Samsung isn't very good. In any case the Hitachi tool seems to work with most drives.

It is entirely possible that the difference between the AAM and normal modes is just too small to matter. Depending on surrounding noise a noise difference of ~1db isn't neccesarily perceptible.

dan · Post by **dan** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 10:22 am

andyb

any new changes in your HD? can you still hear any whine or the seeks or the "whoosh" sound or vibrations? is it NIDEC motor stamped? how does it compare with notebook drives?

i'm thinking of buying one from gogocity

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:31 am

The only change in noise since my drive was "broken in" has been a new mounting method, new to me that is many people have used "Sorbothane" in the past. If anyone has bought Geil RAM in a matched pair, they will understand what I mean. I noticed the packaging of the RAM is a very high density foam that seems to have similar properties to "Sorbothane", so I mounted it down the egdes of the drives and screwed the drives down onto it, so most of the edge of the drive is subdued, rather than just around the screw holes in the usual Sonata drive mounting style.
I witnessed 3 things, all of which were very interesting, and not totally expected.
1. My P120 200GB SATA's seek noises have been muted, AND the vibrational noise mostly vanished (Nidec motor by the way).
2, My 7200.7 200GB PATA's "slow" seeks have gone, the fast seeks are audiable, the minimal vibration noise that the drive produced seems to still be present.
3, The overall drive related noise seems to have been reduced to a degree that I can now recognise the seek noises of the drives, i.e. I know by sound which drive is seeking. I havent listened for whooshing noise, but I am impressed by the reduction, and now need to get a quiter PSU and case fans.

As many people have stated, one persons environment & hearing is different from someone elses, I would say that I can clearly hear most of the seeks of my drives, bear in mind, they are amongst the two quietest 3.5" drives ever made.!!! I can also clearly hear the fan on my Freezer 64 at any speed, it is quiter than the Zalman 7000. My system must be really really quiet.

Changing the subject back too 2.5" drives..... unfortunatly my quiet PC is in my quiet house, the 2.5" drives are in my noisy office, a comparison is just not reasonable, but I have recently experienced a few Hitachi drives, a Fujitsu, and a Seagate Momentus 5400rpm drive.
The Seagate wins hands down, no vibration, no seek noise nothing (in my noisy office), however to be fair it's brand new, the other drives were not.
I have just received a Cuda IV 80GB drive that was thought to be faulty, it appears to work fine however, and I can listen too it in my noisy office, comparisons however I cant do unless I bring my PC into the office (not likely).

Regarding the performance of the P120 200GB, it seems to be the same speed as the P80 by all accounts. The THG review "ha ha ha" review is such a strong word for it, quotes the drives of startling transfer rates, mine is no where near that, this could either be that the 200GB model only uses 100GB per platter rather than a short 125GB platter, wheras the 250GB model used 125GB per platter, or it could be that THG picked those numbers out of their arse.

Regarding Hitachi's utility vs Samsungs utility, I didnt know Samsung made one........... thats why I used Hitachi's tool

Andy

Samsung P120 200GB SATA tested and ...............

Samsung P120 200GB SATA tested and ...............

Re: P120 200GB SATA tested and ...............

andyb