Samsung Spinpoint 2TB F4EG

[taltamir]

I can't find any reviews for these so I am asking here.
I am looking at this drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152245
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...8&model_cd=552

for a ZFS RAID1 array. I was wondering if there are issues I should know about.
For example, with the WD GP drives there is the issue of no TLER, is there a similar issue with these F4s?
Also with the WD GP there is the issue of head parking delay being set very low, is there a similar issue with the F4 EG?
any other issue?

 

[jjmIII]

Go to your Newegg link under reviews. Hit 'Control and F' then type 'raid'. Lots of good/helpful reviews, and looks fine under raid.

 

[taltamir]

newegg reviews don't tend to be all that reliable.

 

[David C]

I couldn't find much data either, but bought one and it arrived today. I do not trust "yet" enough to put into a RAID set, so this is a trial for reliability that does not need super speed retrieval.

 

[tweakboy]

You can get more performance out of the disk if you change the cluster size to 512 bytes instead of default 4k bytes. If you dont want to format or lose data use Partition Wizard and change cluster size and run crystal mark before and after, ull see the gain.

 

[jjmIII]

newegg reviews don't tend to be all that reliable.

There are large groups of verified buyers reporting their raids work great. But ya....don't trust that, they are probably all lying :hmm:. Your better off trusting some other people on the internet.

 

[taltamir]

There are large groups of verified buyers reporting their raids work great. But ya....don't trust that, they are probably all lying :hmm:. Your better off trusting some other people on the internet.

neither the TLER problem nor the head parking problem with the WD would be noticeable to a user in the short term. You would find the same "I got a X of those in RAID-Y and it works great for the past week" on the WD GP drives.

also, they ARE people on the internet... and yes, I trust anandtech forum members more then newegg customers (both of which are on the internet)...
also, if anyone actually mentions an issue I would have something more specific to research.

 

[SickBeast]

This Samsung drive does decent with sequential transfers, but is quite slow for random access due to its 5400rpm spindle speed.

That said, for $100, it's hard to go wrong with this drive. The comparable drives from WD are also 5400rpm. I'm not sure what Seagate has, but I've heard a ton of horror stories about their >1TB drives.

If you just need a ton of space for archival purposes, I'd say you'd be happy with a drive like this. If you want something to run your OS and apps off of, I would suggest waiting until there are 7200rpm variants of these drives. There's also the fact that WD just came out with 750gb platters, so a drive based on those would be significantly faster as well.

 

[SickBeast]

Also people say that the Samsung warranties are terrible.

 

[taltamir]

thank you sickbeast, does it have issues like the WD TLER and quick head parking?

 

[tweakboy]

For the heck of it

 

[alaricljs]

For the heck of it

For the heck of what? What are you showing in that image? That could be any storage device.

 

[tweakboy]

That is my F4 320GB single platter

cuz I thought I read in this thread someone wanted to know how other drives perform to his and what not. sorry no offesnse alarcijis your a good guy..

 

[alaricljs]

That is my F4 320GB single platter

cuz I thought I read in this thread someone wanted to know how other drives perform to his and what not. sorry no offesnse alarcijis your a good guy..

No offense meant or taken. You just need to remember to tell people what you are showing them.

 

[taltamir]

thats great and all, but a single sided platter 320GB drive and a 4 double sided 2TB drive will have completely different performance, even if both are called F4.
And I am not concerned about the performance, I am curious to know if there are issues I should be aware of.

in theory TLER (and its equivalents) should be a problem here as well, IIRC seagate allows you to use a tool to enable/disable it at will on any of their drives, WD does not, does samsung?
And since it is an "eco green" drive, does that mean it has the same head parking issue that the WD has? so far nobody was able to tell me.