Samsung S166 Series of ultra silent HDDs announced

Le_Gritche · Post by **Le_Gritche** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:12 am

Just as SPCR's article of recommended HDDs has been updated today, Samsung has announced in a press release "its new SpinPoint S166 Series of ultra silent and high-speed hard disk drives."
Of particular interest to SPCR's readers, they claim :

Benchmarking tests on sound power have shown that competing hard drives (80GB and 160GB models) generate on average 2.8 bel (1 bel = 10 decibels) in idle mode and 3.2 bel in seek mode, while Samsungâ€™s S166 series generate just 2.4 bel and 2.75 bel respectively. This significant fifteen percent noise-level reduction makes the drives ideal for use in office computers, as well as in home consumer electronics such as DVR/ PVRs, or any other hard drive equipped products intended for use in a quiet environment.

They list only 3 SATA models for now but, according to the press release, PATA models are available too. All these drives are 1 platter only and use 6.5W at idle, 8W for read/write, 9.5W for seeks. The prices quoted by the french website where I read about it are 45â‚¬ for 80Go and 60â‚¬ for 160Go models. For comparaison I should add that existing 160Go Samsung HDDs are sold around 55â‚¬ here.

Although this 2.45 Bel / 2.80 Bel should be a good improvement compared to the Spinpoint T HD400LJ (2.7 Bel / 2.9 Bel) currently on top of SPCR's list of recommended HDDs or to another featured drives like the Spinpoint P80 SP0802N (2.7 Bel / 2.8 Bel), it should be noted that according to Samsung's specifications the P120 SP1603N was already close (2.5 Bel/ 2.8 Bel), and the T166 HD160HJ was already lower in noise(2.35 Bel/ 2.7 Bel) at least according to specifications.

EDIT: "SpinPoint" -> "Samsung" in the subject

croddie · Post by **croddie** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:24 am

Le_Gritche wrote:Just as SPCR's article of recommended HDDs has been updated today, Samsung has announced in a [url=http://www.samsung.com/PressCenter/Pres ... 0000336337]2.8 bel (1 bel = 10 decibels) in idle mode and 3.2 bel in seek mode, while Samsungâ€™s S166 series generate just 2.4 bel and 2.75 bel respectively. This significant fifteen percent noise-level reduction

15% noise reduction indeed!

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:52 am

They look to be full height - or are my eyes telling fibs, I would have thought that Samsung would have made them 2/3rd height, it seem to have helped Seagate with their 160GB single platter SATA drives, they are cooler and quieter than their full height counterparts.

Andy

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:58 pm

The Chinese-designed "Hitachi" 7K160s are full-height, and very quiet indeed!

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 4:13 pm

I've read the announcement on another site today and I find it confusing. The samsung says it's the quiet series drive intended to use in htpc/dvr. Yet, according to samsung specs, it is louder than T166 series.

Take a look.
S166 (single platter)
HD321KJ (two platters)

Something wrong with samsung testing methodology?

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:41 pm

I don't see anything unusual or exciting about the specs. The two data rate specifications are backwards, BTW.