Samsung 1TB F1 vs Western Digital 1TB GP vs Hitachi 7k1000

gb115b · Post by **gb115b** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:12 am

are the samsung / wd drives even available yet? has anyoen doen a comparison?

i heard they may be available in the states...i've seen pre-orders over here for some of the drives...

i'd love to know how they compared to a 501LJ of 5000AAKS

tonyw · Post by **tonyw** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:35 pm

Samsung drives are not available yet. Someone posted a link recently to a German web site that was listing a release date of October, which would be probably the third time its been delayed.

I have ordered a (supposely pre-release version) of the Western Digital 1TB GreenPower drive, which should arrive any day now. I don't have any test equipment, but I will at least be able to compare it subjectively to my Hitachi 750GB drive and Western Digital 500GB drive.

zoob · Post by **zoob** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:35 pm

Also anxiously awaiting results. The Hitachi is dropping in price recently...

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:32 pm

gb115b wrote:are the samsung / wd drives even available yet? has anyoen doen a comparison?

i heard they may be available in the states...i've seen pre-orders over here for some of the drives...

i'd love to know how they compared to a 501LJ of 5000AAKS

I've got one WD10EACS sitting here in my storage box with three 501LJ's and all seems well.
Transfer rates are higher with the WD but burst speed and access time is marginally slower.
Noise wise it's not too bad (I'd even say there's slightly more vibration from the Samsungs) but 4 drives running in a small Dell server does create bit of resonance....

The WD does run a fair bit hotter than the Samsungs but that's a trait I noticed with my Seagate perpendicular HDD too and can also be partially blamed on position in the case.

Goldmember · Post by **Goldmember** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:58 am

The WD Green Power is also available in Japan as well as Australia and should be in North America in a few weeks. BTW, where's my 32MB of cache dammit?

The Seagate ES.2 1TB is available at newegg.

The Samsung F1 1TB is MIA.

I think the conventional wisdom is that most of the new drive models should start to appear in October.

P.S. Thanks for the first review Firetech!

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:15 pm

Goldmember wrote:P.S. Thanks for the first review Firetech!

SileX · Post by **SileX** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 4:30 pm

Perhaps this thread should be sent to:

Large drive review
viewtopic.php?t=41515

Thanks.

Goldmember · Post by **Goldmember** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:27 am

Firetech,

Thanks for the screenshot. A max STR of 88.6MB in HD Tune would be over 90MB in HD Tach. Call me crazy, but doesn't this seem like a 5 x 200GB per platter hard drive instead of 4 x 250GB?

IIRC, the 750GB SE16 had similar performance with 188GB platters.

One more question:

Do you notice the IntelliPower in any way? Does the drive spin down to 5,400 rpm and does it respond quickly or is it sluggish? I noticed the 15ms response time which could mean it was either spinning @ 5,400rpm or WD had AAM turned on. I dunno.

Congrats on your world exclusive!

Luminair · Post by **Luminair** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:43 pm

I guess those Samsungs are known for being deceptively noisy because of their vibrations, so its no surprise to hear that they are noisier than the GP SE16. But wow, I am surprised that so many people are getting those drives when there is hardly a whisper of them in North America

bryanb · Post by **bryanb** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:36 pm

Firetech wrote:
gb115b wrote:are the samsung / wd drives even available yet? has anyoen doen a comparison?

i heard they may be available in the states...i've seen pre-orders over here for some of the drives...

i'd love to know how they compared to a 501LJ of 5000AAKS
I've got one WD10EACS sitting here in my storage box with three 501LJ's and all seems well.
Transfer rates are higher with the WD but burst speed and access time is marginally slower.
Noise wise it's not too bad (I'd even say there's slightly more vibration from the Samsungs) but 4 drives running in a small Dell server does create bit of resonance....
The WD does run a fair bit hotter than the Samsungs but that's a trait I noticed with my Seagate perpendicular HDD too and can also be partially blamed on position in the case.

How is the seek noise on the WD?

tonyw · Post by **tonyw** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:12 pm

Looks like the Western Digital 1TB GreenPower is now available for retail sale: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... subcat=940

FYI, I have ordered from this site before as a Canadian without any problems.

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 2:53 am

bryanb wrote:How is the seek noise on the WD?

Sorry, there's no real data on the drive (awaiting final OS) so can only test via benchmarking tests.
Sorry.

kagsp · Post by **kagsp** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 3:21 am

If manufacturer data qualifies:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/produc ... anguage=en
Looks excellent on paper.

Available at some BB stores and online (b/o) for $260 now.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 6003685416
No... I don't work for them.

Cheers Everyone

SileX · Post by **SileX** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:26 am

Great price drops. Now, once the Samsung SpinPoint F1 1000GB 32MB SATA II (HD103UJ) starts selling, we will have them all competing and brave new price reductions!!!

Hitachi
Seagate
Western Digital
Samsung <-- BEST?

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:33 am

SileX wrote:Great price drops. Now, once the Samsung SpinPoint F1 1000GB 32MB SATA II (HD103UJ) starts selling, we will have them all competing and brave new price reductions!!!

Hitachi
Seagate
Western Digital
Samsung <-- BEST?

Sounds like the WD drive is the one to beat - despite having 5 platters, it runs at 2.5 bels idle, and 4 watts in Idle - yeah, I'm sure that's in 5400 rpm mode (can you fix it to that insteado ramping up & down?), but 4 watts idle for a 1 TB drive!?!?! Yowza! From the specs, it runs quieter and uses less power than any of the other competitors - even Samsung!

-Dan
(I've got 2 501LJ's and really like them, and dislike my other 500 GB WD drive because it has an odd 'pitch' to it at idle... )

SileX · Post by **SileX** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:57 am

5 platters for the WD 1TB? Any web link for such information? Thanks.

bob548 · Post by **bob548** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 3:10 pm

Actually, according to TG Daily, the WD 1TB will have 4 platters:

WD claims that the 4-disk 1 TB Green drive shaves more than 5 watts off the consumption of other 1 TB drives, which, according to the company, typically consume about 13.5 watts.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33028/135/

SileX · Post by **SileX** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 2:48 am

bob548 wrote:Actually, according to TG Daily, the WD 1TB will have 4 platters:

WD claims that the 4-disk 1 TB Green drive shaves more than 5 watts off the consumption of other 1 TB drives, which, according to the company, typically consume about 13.5 watts.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33028/135/

I wonder if such power savings or even more also apply to the Samsung SpinPoint F1 1000GB 32MB SATA II (HD103UJ) with only three platters.

OK, from such link:

"WD claims that the 4-disk 1 TB Green drive shaves more than 5 watts off the consumption of other 1 TB drives, which, according to the company, typically consume about 13.5 watts. A quick look at competing devices reveals that WD uses the high-end for its comparison, as Hitachi GSTâ€™s 5-disk 1 TB drive is rated at an average power consumption (during read/write processes) of 13.6 watts, while Seagateâ€™s upcoming 1 TB 4-disk drive is promised to consume only 12.0 watts in a comparable scenario. Samsung will soon release a 3-disk 1 TB drive, which is expected to run at less than 11.0 watts.

Still, WD says that its 1 TB drive will come in at a range of 8 - 8.5 watts, which translates into surprising economical and ecological savings."

So (1TB drives):

Hitachi: 13.6 W (5 platters)
Seagate: 12 W (4 platters)
Samsung: 11 W <-- 3 PLATTERS!
Western Digital: 8.5 W (4 platters)

Now, if WD could do that with a 4-platter drive, imagine such technology on the 3-platter Samsung (just 6 W or so?). That latter is the one I want!

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:11 am

Still, WD says that its 1 TB drive will come in at a range of 8 - 8.5 watts, which translates into surprising economical and ecological savings."

Its not so much "Power Savings" as it is "Power Savings", its not revolutionary as such, they have just developed the drive to run at 5400 rpm speed whilst idle, and spin up to 7200rpm when its being used more heavily.

The 3 main point of drive power consumption are.

Motor Speed,
Platter weight,
Electronics.

Thus 5 otherwise identical drives with 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 platters will all consume different amounts of power, as the motor will need to put more work in to keep the heavier 5 platters spinning at X speed.

If the speed is dropped then the power consumption will drop as well, and likewise if it is raised then the power usage will increase.

Some would call it cheating, but this is a natural and progressive step, and no doubt other manufacturers will follow suit in the future.

My only scepticism is how this will play out with reliability, and performance, only time will tell.

Andy

elec999 · Post by **elec999** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:27 am

Sorry to kick in. Just a few comments. Western Digital why not 32meg cache, also does the green actually make a difference or is it all marketting. How does more platters affect performance.
Thanks

Goldmember · Post by **Goldmember** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:10 am

elec999,

1. Not sure why WD chose to skip 32MB of cache this round. Power consumption? BTW, Is it possible for these companies to put DDR2 on hard drives? I notice all my drives have that old school SDRAM? on the PCB.

2. I think this IntelliPower could have real benefits in the desktop environment (office apps and web surfing). Also, DVRs could really use these to quiet the idle noise or vibration coming from under the TV. And of course external drives would run cooler and quieter when in use. Plympton brought up a good point about some kind of user adjustability or preferences being needed.

3. Yeah, there's definitely the slight smell of marketing BS with this product but every little bit helps. A few watts x tens of millions of computers adds up.

4. Typically the more platters and heads you have, the more Input/Output performance you will receive. BUT, does the desktop single-user need 10 heads churning away, especially with 2 or more gigs of ram? Conversely, 1 platter 1 head HDDs are painfully slow!

5. Still not sure if it's 4 or 5 platters.

I'll wait for the TechReport or Anandtech review to find out. Or, if WD posts the info on their site.

Lastly, the 1TB 7200.11 is available at newegg . Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

SileX · Post by **SileX** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:42 am

Goldmember wrote:4. Typically the more platters and heads you have, the more Input/Output performance you will receive. BUT, does the desktop single-user need 10 heads churning away, especially with 2 or more gigs of ram? Conversely, 1 platter 1 head HDDs are painfully slow!

As far as I know, it is just the opposite for the same capacity drives, since fewer platters mean more compressed dada, and thus faster transfer allowed with less head movement. So, the Samsung 1TB with 3 platters should be faster than the competitors with 4 or 5 platters. I just cannot wait for a full review of them all:

Hitachi Ultrastar A7K1000 1000GB SATA II (HUA721010KLA330) <-- 5 platters

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1000GB SATA II (ST31000340AS) <-- 4 platters

Western Digital Caviar GP (GreenPower) 1000GB SATA II (WD10EACS) - 5400-7200U/min â€¢ 16MB Cache â€¢ 8.9ms â€¢ 3 years warranty <-- 4 or 5 platters??

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1000GB 32MB SATA II (HD103UJ) <-- 3 platters

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:11 pm

Goldmember wrote:elec999,

2. I think this IntelliPower could have real benefits in the desktop environment (office apps and web surfing). Also, DVRs could really use these to quiet the idle noise or vibration coming from under the TV. And of course external drives would run cooler and quieter when in use. Plympton brought up a good point about some kind of user adjustability or preferences being needed.

Unless the drive can be fixed or tweaked at 5400 RPM, I wonder if the constant thrashing that a DVR does would ramp it up to 7200 RPM all the time? That would be a huge bummer... (A DVR is continuously writing a buffer of some sort - at least TiVo's are, Win MCE's I'm not sure - they are when the LiveTV is showing / Paused, but not sure if the tuner isn't being used....)

-Dan

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:57 am

Goldmember wrote:BTW, Is it possible for these companies to put DDR2 on hard drives? I notice all my drives have that old school SDRAM? on the PCB.

A good DDR set of chips will transfer around 3000-10,000mb/sec depending on how you arrange it and the type of memory controller. The hard drive interface however is SATA2, which is only 300mb/sec. As such, even very, very, very old RAM is faster than the interface. You need only match the RAM to the interface, so old, cheap memory is plenty fast to fully saturate the SATA2 available bandwidth.

SileX · Post by **SileX** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:24 pm

FINALLY Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB AVAILABLE:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... 49&tab=fea#

This product IS NOW AVAILABLE!!!
http://www.doicoaustralia.com/shop/prod ... 82f65a45fb

Acoustics
Idle 2.70 Bel
Performance Seek 2.90 Bel

Power Requirements
Voltage +5VÂ±5%, +12VÂ±10%
Spin-up Current (Max.) 2.4 A
Seek (typical) 8.6 W
Read/Write (typical) 7.9 W
Idle (typical) 7.7 W
Standby (typical) 0.8/1.2 W
Sleep (typical) 0.8/1.2 W

Goldmember · Post by **Goldmember** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:56 am

SileX wrote:As far as I know, it is just the opposite for the same capacity drives, since fewer platters mean more compressed dada, and thus faster transfer allowed with less head movement. So, the Samsung 1TB with 3 platters should be faster than the competitors with 4 or 5 platters...

I think we're talking about 2 different things. You're referring to the STR or sequential transfer rate and I'm referring to IO or Input/Output performance. You're correct, the Sammy will no doubt have the fastest read/write performance due to its higher aerial density.

If you want, go look at the StorageReview database (pop-ups and no content

) and compare same-brand drives. There seems to be a correlation between the spindle speed, the number of heads and the IO performance results. Firmware seems to be an important element also.

I'm no expert but that's what I can deduce by looking at the data.

plympton wrote:Unless the drive can be fixed or tweaked at 5400 RPM, I wonder if the constant thrashing that a DVR does would ramp it up to 7200 RPM all the time?...

Good question. The STR is nearly identical for 5400 and 7200rpm 3.5" drives but the seek time is slower (12ms) on the 5400. I noticed the Hitachi CinemaStar drives (7200rpm) have really slow seeks (14-15ms) which makes be believe seek time isn't that important in a DVR. DVRs rock except for the noise so if you can lock it @ 5400rpm then all would be well in TV land. Maybe different user selected power modes, high,low etc.?

I'm sure the reason we can't find DVRs with 5400rpm drives is because nobody manufactures those drives anymore!

I don't know about Tivo but I can verify the SA8300 has lots of vibration and hum.

AZBrandon wrote:...You need only match the RAM to the interface, so old, cheap memory is plenty fast to fully saturate the SATA2 available bandwidth.

OK, thanks for clarifying. I thought 32MB of DDR2-533mhz @ 1.8 volts would be really cool (pun intended).

lobuni · Post by **lobuni** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 3:40 am

it turns out that the new WD caviar GP series runs @ ~5400rpm all the time
http://www.storagereview.com/1000.sr?page=0%2C2

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:07 am

And note StorageReview's comment:

...the GP also happens to be the quietest drive we have ever measured and heard here at SR. Its miniscule power dissipation also translates into far less need for cooling which yields yet more acoustic benefit.

gb115b · Post by **gb115b** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:18 am

Firetech...can you post us your temps?

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:30 am

Neural network (N-stepping), variable frequency asyncronic clocks, 0.1V vcore, passively cooled but not silent (periodic hissing noise), running at 37.5 deg C tbase, fails Prime, random volatile memory corruptions, thermal throttling... in other words, I have a fewer.

Forgive me if I make little to no sense. :p

Indeed that review sample at SR is phenomenally cool-running and all benchmarks supports the idea of constant-rpm (5400) unit. Specs page for WD10EACS does mention 5400rpm to 7200rpm. This was originally misinterpreted to be variable rpm. How even now the "official" truth appears to be that depending on model they are 5400rpm or 7200rpm. Which brings a questions: since WD10EACS is listed as one single model, one single capacity point and one single cache variant, does it mean there's still 7200rpm 1000GB WDs? Or just that smaller are 7200rpm? Why is that 7200rpm mentioned for 1000GB unit specifically? Because in future they might switch from 4 platters 5400rpm to 3 platter 7200rpm without giving warning? Most likely.

And it's possible there's already some 7200rpm drives with (likely) 4 platters, as Firetech's anecdotal experience suggests:
- WD10EACS sample running hotter than HF501LJ - with 4 watt idle and 8 watt seeking, it should be way cooler than Samsung.
- Samsungs (the Worst Vibrators of All Hard Drives) vibrate slightly more. This would probably be true even with 5-platter Hitachi! 5400rpm drive shouldn't vibrate notiably even with such massive spindle assembly (4 platters).

Why, oh, why does WD design so marvelous drives but then spoil retailing by using totally ****ed up model naming scheme and the most vague specs in the industry? Why do they ruin perfection by stupidest of stupid mistakes? They have different drive models for 2MB IDE, 8MB IDE, 8MB SATA 1.5, 16MB SATA 1.5, 8MB SATA 3.0, 16MB SATA 3.0, 8MB IDE RAID, 8MB SATA 1.5 RAID, 16MB SATA 1.5 RAID, 8MB SATA 3.0 RAID, 16MB 3.0 RAID, etc., etc. List is endless. But they can't ****ing tell whether which model is 5400rpm or 7200rpm and what number of platters it has. Ask me if I really even care about having fifty different combinations of 2, 8, 16MB cache, ATA, SATA, SATA2 and RAID variants of each. Not really.

CONGRATULATIONS on yet another marvellous ****-up, WD! The drive really is marvellous but how do we potential customers be sure that the very sample of WD10EACS is indeed 5400rpm or not? NO WAI!!!1eleven

Sorry. That was the obligatory rant I had to keep. Even after saying all that, I will consider switching my pre-order of F1 to GP. But will make sure retailer can give me a return guarantee in case it's a 7200rpm. If no retailer is willing to give such, I'll stick to waiting for F1 availability (probably by X-mas... 2020).

Samsung 1TB F1 vs Western Digital 1TB GP vs Hitachi 7k1000

Samsung 1TB F1 vs Western Digital 1TB GP vs Hitachi 7k1000

Re: Samsung 1TB F1 vs Western Digital 1TB GP vs Hitachi 7k10

Re: Samsung 1TB F1 vs Western Digital 1TB GP vs Hitachi 7k10

Re: Samsung 1TB F1 vs Western Digital 1TB GP vs Hitachi 7k10