Any experience with Samsung SP0411N (40 GB)

Murkyl · Post by **Murkyl** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 2:31 pm

Has anyone tried the Samsung SP0411N 40 GB hard disk in a quiet pc?

http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDis ... 0411N.htm

I'm thinking of using this drive in a quiet PC. Manufacturers specs have it at 2.6 Bels at idle and 2.7 Bel while seeking. The Barracuda IV is speced at 2.5 Bels Idle for the 60/80 GB drives and <2.5 Bels for the 20/40 GB drives. The seeks sound levels are speced at 2.8 and 2.5 bels for the 60/80 and 20/40 respectively.

At least on paper, the Samsung looks to be almost as quiet as the Barracuda IV, which is the benchmark quiet drive. The Samsung is equiped with SilentSeek and FDB spindle technology.

Another plus seems to be the power comsumption of this drive which hopefully will translate into a cooler running drive.

Samsung seeks take 6.4-8 W
Samsung idle 6.1 W
Samsung Standby and Sleep 0.4 W

Seagate seeks 12.5 W
Seagate idle 8 W
Seagate Standby and sleep 1.1 W

kaiser79 · Post by **kaiser79** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 4:55 am

I don't have experience, but I noticed that Samsung is the only manufacturer who claims seek is under 30 decibels (2.8 Bel) for 120GB+ / 8MB cache drives. Whereas WD and Seagate can't get under 33 decibels for anything over 80GB.

I'd love to read more reviews or user experience with these drives..

CoolColJ · Post by **CoolColJ** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 5:10 am

there is a review on this site for the 160 gig one I believe

mikellpp · Post by **mikellpp** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 6:40 am

I use a Barracuda IV and V and have had the Samsung SP0411 for over a month. As far as noise (whine) all 3 are very close. Probably the difference coming from variances in individual drive samples.

In other words if you are used to the Barracuda IV or V noise than the Samsung will not disappoint. Sometimes i think the Samsung is quieter.

The Samsung 40GB drive is also much thinner because it only has one head.

The Samsung runs at least 5 C cooler in my Chieftec cases and of course it comes with a 3 year warranty. Good value for the money.

Murkyl · Post by **Murkyl** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 11:07 am

mikellpp wrote:I use a Barracuda IV and V and have had the Samsung SP0411 for over a month. As far as noise (whine) all 3 are very close. Probably the difference coming from variances in individual drive samples.

In other words if you are used to the Barracuda IV or V noise than the Samsung will not disappoint. Sometimes i think the Samsung is quieter.

The Samsung 40GB drive is also much thinner because it only has one head.

The Samsung runs at least 5 C cooler in my Chieftec cases and of course it comes with a 3 year warranty. Good value for the money.

Cooler is definately better! I'm not interested in a large capacity drive. Most of the data storage is going to be on a file server in the basement accessed with GigE (Amazingly inexpensive

). I am looking for super quiet and very low heat. (Less heat means less cooling and fan noise).

I was hoping someone would have heard these drives in action and you actually had all three, the 'Cuda IV, V and Samsung.

Thanks for the response. This looks like the drive I'll be putting in my HTPC if I need to put one in at all.