WD caviar black or Samsung F3 Spinpoint??

TRACEY_BLAKE · 27 Aug 2011 at 15:12

Hi

I'm now about to order a couple of WD Caviar Black Sata 3 7,200rpm 64mb 1tb/1.5tb HDD's but thought I ought to just check the forum before I do! I've just read a few threads that seem to favour the Samsung F3 Spinpoint over the WD Caviar black! It's been stated a couple of times that the WD is noisier, is this right? What about performance between the two, which is the faster & better performing drive?

I was going to buy a Sata 3 HDD as assumed that they would be faster than the Sata 2 drives (don't know much about HDD's) but have just read a thread that suggests this isn't the case! Do I therefore buy Sata 2 or 3?? I'm not an overclocker or gamer, I'll only be using the pc for digital audio mixing & recording & as a hobby, some photo/video editing.

Thanks in advance

Surveyor · 27 Aug 2011 at 15:48

You can buy either SATA 2 or SATA 3. It doesn't make any difference as far as compatibility is concerned as either can be plugged into a SATA 2 or SATA 3 port.

But SATA 3 offers no performance benefit over SATA 2 with HDD's.

If you're looking at 1TB then the Samsung F3 is the way to go.

The only real benefit of the WD Black is the 5 year warranty.

We're left with Samsung's Spinpoint F3, which is our clear favorite of the four. Not only does the F3 offer the best performance in all manner of sequential transfers, it's easily the quietest of the drives overall. I'm not thrilled by the fact that the F3's transaction rates drop off after 32 concurrent I/O requests, but that's not a condition many desktop users are likely to face. Besides, the Spinpoint certainly held its own in our disk-intensive multitasking tests, which are far more indicative of the sort of workloads produced by enthusiast desktops. Samsung doesn't give up much ground to the Caviar when it comes to random access times, either.

7,200-RPM terabytes from Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate, and WD face off

TRACEY_BLAKE · 27 Aug 2011 at 16:04

Thanks Surveyor. I'm scratching my head asking myself how it is that Sata 3 HDD's have no performance benefit over Sata 2 HDD's, can you elaborate pls?? Aren't they double the bandwidth? In which case, why did they bother bringing out the Sata 3 HDD's??

I was under the impression that a bigger cache was better too (64mb rather than 32mb), is this right? And also a faster RPM??

Thanks again Surveyor

Surveyor · 27 Aug 2011 at 16:24

Bigger cache might be "better" but the difference is so small you wouldn't notice it.

Generally the faster the RPM the better performing the drive. But unless you buy a slower "green" drive or a faster WD Velociraptor (totally not worth it) 3.5" drives are all 7,200RPM.

It's the mechanical HDD's which are the real limit on speed, not the interface they're connected to. SATA 2 has a practical limit of approx 250-275MB/s and SATA 3 500-550MB/s. As even the best mechanical drives don't go any faster than around 150MB/s the interface is irrelevant.

TRACEY_BLAKE · 27 Aug 2011 at 16:36

Excellent explaination Surveyor as usual! Thanks again! You've just saved me quite a few quid as I was going to go for 2 x WD Caviar Black's Sata 3!! You've just convinced me to go with Samsung F3 Spinpoint Sata 2!! Cheers for the very interesting link!!

Surveyor · 27 Aug 2011 at 16:44

TRACEY_BLAKE said:
Excellent explaination Surveyor as usual! Thanks again! You've just saved me quite a few quid as I was going to go for 2 x WD Caviar Black's Sata 3!! You've just convinced me to go with Samsung F3 Spinpoint Sata 2!! Cheers for the very interesting link!!

No problem.

£40 to treat yourself to something else

TRACEY_BLAKE · 27 Aug 2011 at 17:11

£40 towards some RAM or a case me thinks, thanks

Surveyor · 27 Aug 2011 at 17:22

£40 will get you a nice 8GB of RAM if you're on dual channel and use DDR3:

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

suitheist · 27 Aug 2011 at 21:58

Beg, borrow or steal 3x samsung F4 320gb and put them in raid 0. They aren't really on sale anymore, but if you can find any they are single platter 500gb drives at reduced capacity to improve seek times. In raid they are hard to beat: http://www.overclock.net/hard-drive...ung-spinpoint-f4-various-raid-benchmarks.html

ristac · 27 Aug 2011 at 23:20

I was all set myself to go raid0 with a couple of drives but the reliability arguments that have been thrown my way have put me off.

suitheist · 28 Aug 2011 at 00:44

Well, three drives in raid are three times more likely to fail than one on it's own. Just have yet another drive for backups.

TRACEY_BLAKE · 28 Aug 2011 at 00:58

Surveyor said:
£40 will get you a nice 8GB of RAM if you're on dual channel and use DDR3:

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

These look like good sticks thanks, but I need 16gb (2x8GB) ddr3 either 1333mhz or 1600mhz, are these Kingston Hyper X Genesis available in 16gb kits do you know Surveyor??

Surveyor · 28 Aug 2011 at 07:31

For 16GB just get two 8GB kits so you have 4x4GB.

There are very few 8GB sticks available and they're extremely expensive.

TRACEY_BLAKE · 28 Aug 2011 at 15:13

yes ill get 16gb (4x4gb). Which sticks would you recommend Surveyor,the Corsair Vengeance or Kingston HyperX Genesis?? thanks in advance.

RJC · 28 Aug 2011 at 15:16

I would probably go with the Kingston on special this weekend.

Surveyor · 28 Aug 2011 at 15:54

TRACEY_BLAKE said:
yes ill get 16gb (4x4gb). Which sticks would you recommend Surveyor,the Corsair Vengeance or Kingston HyperX Genesis?? thanks in advance.

You have to be wary of RAM with tall heat spreaders as they can get in the way of large CPU coolers.

I'd just get whatever RAM is the best price at the time you order.

Low profile RAM, like the Kingson, is best for compatability with large coolers as I said.

The Kingston @ £39.98 is limited to one per order so you might get 2 if you put them through as separate orders.

First class postage, if ordering just the RAM, is £2.90 plus VAT so not too bad.

TRACEY_BLAKE · 28 Aug 2011 at 22:01

Thanks guys for your help,appreciate it! ill go with whichever RAM is cheaper then. The heat spreaders on the vengeance probably wont be an issue for me as i wont need coolers cos not overclocking. Like you say low profile sticks are always an option though. Good price for the kingstons thanks,will probably go for those if they are cheapest. Thanks again!