Finally, a quiet SATA drive...I mean really quiet.

rhelmer · Post by **rhelmer** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:38 pm

* 1 x Samsung Spinpoint T166 501LJ (500 GB)
* 2 x Samsung Spinpoint T166 321KJ (2 x 320 GB) as RAID0
* 2 x Westerm Digital Caviar SE WD2000JS (2 x 200 GB) as RAID0.

Which would be your choice, considering speed and noise?

I can't speak to the noise of each, but I there is something worth considering in terms of hard drive speed. I did not check the specific Samsung drives mentioned above, but the figures shown at Newegg.com suggests that both of those drives have average latencies of 4.17ms. However, if you "short-stroked" the 500 GB drive to operate at the effective capacity of the 320 GB drive (format the 500 GB drive with a single partition the size of the 320 GB), you would have a fairly significant drop in latency.

The performance increase would be dependent on how you use your system, but most day-to-day Windows and application use is helped significantly by lowered hard drive latency. This is most apparent when you switch to a 10k or 15k RPM SCSI drive--it's quite an improvement. (Incidentally, this is a big reason for the performance increase offered by "ReadyBoost" in Vista--even though there aren't any USB flash drives that can have read or write data faster than a hard drive, they have a significant advantage in terms of latency.) For performance of straight streaming of data, though, it won't make much difference other than that you're excluding the slowest portion of the drive from use. You could partition the rest of the drive and use it for seldom-used storage as well, but any seeks to that part of the drive would obviously not be at the lowered latency of the original partition.

inoe · Post by **inoe** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 3:33 am

I can confirm that this HD321KJ is incredibly quiet. I've mounted one in an Antec P150 (not suspended, on grommets), and the most disturbing noise is screen bzzzing and NeoHE hissing (second one with the same problem, thinking to have it changed again). When doing tests with HDTach, I can barely hear it spinning or seaking, well done Samsung !

Actualy, it's so much quiet that I bought a new one and I plan to confiure them in mixed RAID 1 and 0, using Intel Matrix RAID (lovely ICH8R

).

About being discontinued, it's strange because it's still available in many stores, here in France.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 10:37 pm

Don't know about discontinued, but it's been a real hassle finding one in the US lately. Most of the online shops (like newegg) stopped carrying them. The only reputable shop that I've found that carries them is ewiz.

That may support claim that it's being discontinued, but then again samsung HDD distribution in the US has always been flaky. I still remember how hard it was to find 2504C.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:49 am

Samsungs web site lists 15 T series drives,80-500 G,SATA2 or ATA6,with 8 or 16 mb buffer. New Egg,Cheif Value,seem to just have the 500 now ????

The T series is,on Samsungs specs,quieter than the P series idle 2.35 bel fo T,2.7 for P Seek 2.7 for T, 2,8 for P. Some other brands latest had caught up to th e P drives..but none claim to match the T's.

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 2:24 am

ronrem wrote:The T series is,on Samsungs specs,quieter than the P series idle 2.35 bel fo T,2.7 for P Seek 2.7 for T, 2,8 for P. Some other brands latest had caught up to th e P drives..but none claim to match the T's.

Now don't you remember how claims of the manufacturers have to be treated?

http://blogit.tietokone.fi/ykkosiajanollia/?p=34

Channi3 · Post by **Channi3** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:59 pm

Hi, I been researching on silent drives and after reading this topic, ive decided to opt for the Spinpoint HD321KJ (T series).

Sadly its an SATAII drive and my motherboard only has standard SATA drive ports. But i didnt give up, and using google, i came across a SATA -> SATAII Bridge Cable (KB-109P1) on http://www.lycom.com.tw/KB109P1.htm

Are these bridge cables good? Can you still get the full performance from the HDD?

Thanks

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 6:55 pm

Channi3 wrote:Sadly its an SATAII drive and my motherboard only has standard SATA drive ports.

SATA II drives, at least both of my Samsungs, work fine on regular SATA ports. There's a jumper (supplied with the HDD) that is set for SATA "I" operation. No bridge or other cable required. You won't get SATA II performance, but that's limited by the MB port anyway.

Plissken · Post by **Plissken** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:22 pm

I just installed (2) HD501LJ drives in a new P180B system and can confirm they are extremely quiet. Idle noise is nonexistant above the other fan noise (maybe until I quiet everything else down a little more) and seek noise is a quiet, gruff, somewhat pleasant sound. I can barely hear it. Hopefully they last a long time and don't get loud.
They are also very fast per HDTach readings and general use.

jjr · Post by **jjr** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:43 pm

dfrost wrote:
Channi3 wrote:Sadly its an SATAII drive and my motherboard only has standard SATA drive ports.
SATA II drives, at least both of my Samsungs, work fine on regular SATA ports. There's a jumper (supplied with the HDD) that is set for SATA "I" operation. No bridge or other cable required. You won't get SATA II performance, but that's limited by the MB port anyway.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe to this date ALL SATA 2 HD are retroncompatible, be it via jumper (like those Samsung's, got one too) or automatic like some Hitachi.

Channi3 · Post by **Channi3** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 4:17 am

jjr wrote:
dfrost wrote:
Channi3 wrote:Sadly its an SATAII drive and my motherboard only has standard SATA drive ports.
SATA II drives, at least both of my Samsungs, work fine on regular SATA ports. There's a jumper (supplied with the HDD) that is set for SATA "I" operation. No bridge or other cable required. You won't get SATA II performance, but that's limited by the MB port anyway.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe to this date ALL SATA 2 HD are retroncompatible, be it via jumper (like those Samsung's, got one too) or automatic like some Hitachi.

Oh! i didn't know that, thanks for the info!

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:49 am

There ain't such thing as SATA II cable, original SATA and SATA II use exactly same cable.

Shop's cable is for external SATA.

J. Sparrow · Post by **J. Sparrow** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 7:42 am

To be honest, there ain't such a thing as a "SATA II"

SATA II is a term which manufacturers have come up with, to differentiate 3 GB/s + NCQ designs from the first generation (1.5 and no NCQ). That's the reason the connectors should be exactly the same!

The jumper is needed to fix some incompatibilities that affect first generation controllers, but it's really a kludge, for it would have been unnecessary if all parts were working as expected.

okay · Post by **okay** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 8:47 am

Are the IDE (PATA) versions just as quiet?

I use a barebone (EY 855) for HTPC (no SATA ports) - and a Samsung IDE 250GB, which has a (after some struggeling) OK noise and vib. level.

Derfel · Post by **Derfel** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:34 am

selling some spare ones I have of these here: viewtopic.php?p=324840

eugenius · Post by **eugenius** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:21 pm

I want to choose between the 321KJ and the 501LJ - on the Samsung site it says this:

321KJ has 2.3 bels idle / 2.7 bels seek
501LJ has 2.7 bels idle / 2.9 bels seek

Anyone that has tested both, I'm guessing the difference is quite a lot, no?
Should I stay with the 321KJ, maybo buy 3 of them for a raid?

leftheaded · Post by **leftheaded** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 4:10 pm

eugenius wrote:I want to choose between the 321KJ and the 501LJ - on the Samsung site it says this:

321KJ has 2.3 bels idle / 2.7 bels seek
501LJ has 2.7 bels idle / 2.9 bels seek

Anyone that has tested both, I'm guessing the difference is quite a lot, no?
Should I stay with the 321KJ, maybo buy 3 of them for a raid?

i'm wondering the same thing, but I was thinking of maybe getting 4. though at that point 4 321KJ's might be just as noisy as 2 501LJ's??

inti · Post by **inti** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:34 am

I have several Samsung 501LJ (T166 series). They are good fast drives (in terms of throughput), cool running, build quality seems good and the motor and seek noises are quiet. But there is significant sample variance for vibration - some of my drives vibrate a fair amount. If you are suspension-mounting them then vibration ought not to be an issue, but otherwise beware: unless you get a good sample then you may find the drive is no better, vibration-wise, than an average 500GB drive. (These are three-platter drives and the two-platter 320GB drive should obviously be that much better in terms of vibration.)

I recently bought a batch of WD SE16 500GB drives - in my country these are currently the least expensive 500GB drives, 20% cheaper even than Samsung. I've only tried out one of them so far but the noise and vibration level is phenomenal, when I first installed the drive for formatting I literally had trouble telling if it was spinning or not, even putting my ear right up next to it. OK, itis a sample of one so far but if this one is representative then the SE16 has to be the best high-capacity drive in terms of noise.

(I also have several Seagate drives and some older Maxtor - I've pretty much tried out all ranges of high-capacity consumer drives in recent years, other than Hitachi - see my signature.)

paramthegreat · Post by **paramthegreat** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:19 am

Although these drive are very quiet with good performance, I would like to mention that Samsung only has 1 year limited warranty. Compare this with Western Digital and Seagate, I don't feel very safe using it as my everyday drive.

I already have a TV from Samsung that went bad within 6 months of owning it. I do not think I trust the manufacturer enough to trust them with my data.

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:35 pm

paramthegreat,

With your Samsung TV experience, I can understand that you might be cautious. As another data point, my Seagate 7200.7 (SATA) drive started acting questionably after a year (and has always been noisy), and HDDLife says that it is only '60%.' I now only use it when I need a third drive for data transfers to the two Samsungs (SP2004C and HD321KJ). The subsequent SP2004C has been going fine for two years, and the year-old HD321KJ is even quieter and cooler.

I do not think I trust the manufacturer enough to trust them with my data.

I backup data daily to the second HDD, and every few months to DVD.

roadie · Post by **roadie** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:55 am

I have a HD321KJ on the way to replace a 200Gb Maxtor DiamondMax 10 that is crapping out on me. I find all my drives to be pretty quiet so it will be interesting to see whether the Samsung makes any difference.

Finally, a quiet SATA drive...I mean really quiet.

Consider short-stroking the 500 GB, also...