Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB or Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s

Sinclair · 14 Mar 2010 at 17:50

I’ve just placed an order for the Overclocked bundle and a Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB to go with it.

*OVERCLOCKED* Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz @ 4.00GHz / Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Motherboard / Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel DDR3 Bundle
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-044-OE&groupid=43&catid=339&subcat=1675

However, I’ve just noticed the WDCB linked below. Would I be correct in assuming that would be better?

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) [HD103SJ]
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-336-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279

Sinclair · 15 Mar 2010 at 11:13

***Bump***

Anyone?

jbloggs · 15 Mar 2010 at 11:56

The WD Black has a 5 year warranty as oposed to 3 for the Samsung, but is £22 dearer and the F3 seems to perform better. To get the 6GB/s inteface speed (of the WD HDD) operational you would have to use the Marvell controller, which is not what you want to use to boot from, as the ICH10R is far better. The Marvell cont. will only give you a higher burst speed (ie the 6GB/s interface as opposed to 3GB/s) over the ICH10R, but this does not give any benefit in real life performance.

So, I would just get the Samsung F3...

Sinclair · 15 Mar 2010 at 15:48

Thanks very much for the explanation jbloggs.

I'll stick with the Samsung F3.

magick · 16 Mar 2010 at 11:10

jbloggs said:
The WD Black has a 5 year warranty as oposed to 3 for the Samsung, but is £22 dearer and the F3 seems to perform better. To get the 6GB/s inteface speed (of the WD HDD) operational you would have to use the Marvell controller, which is not what you want to use to boot from, as the ICH10R is far better. The Marvell cont. will only give you a higher burst speed (ie the 6GB/s interface as opposed to 3GB/s) over the ICH10R, but this does not give any benefit in real life performance.

So, I would just get the Samsung F3...

What about if you have a SSD as a boot drive and are using the 1tb as a app/data drive. Would WD be a better choice over the Samsung?

jbloggs · 16 Mar 2010 at 16:53

magick said:
What about if you have a SSD as a boot drive and are using the 1tb as a app/data drive. Would WD be a better choice over the Samsung?

Personally, I would still go for the F3, lower price and better performance...I can't see the reason to pay the extra £20+...even with a 5 year warranty.

shahpor · 17 Mar 2010 at 13:43

Got a couple of 1Tb Samsung F3's the other day and I have to say I am very impressed.

Upgraded a pair of Seagate 500Gb's, and while it is not exactly fair to compare since the Seagate's are quite old, the performance of the Samsung's is very good.

The biggest difference is the noise! Never heard an HD as quiet as the F3's before.

Ziggy4 · 18 Mar 2010 at 20:40

Received one of the new Caviar Blacks today and decided to put it up against my F3 and it competes very well. Benchmarked with Crystal Disk Mark using 100 MB test size. Added a VelociRaptor for comparison. All running on ICH10R controller.

----------------------------------
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1.0 TB
----------------------------------

Sequential Read : 133.131 MB/s
Sequential Write : 153.825 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 59.301 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 107.921 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 0.907 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 2.962 MB/s

----------------------------------
WD Caviar Black 1.0 TB
----------------------------------

Sequential Read : 172.378 MB/s
Sequential Write : 133.174 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 64.970 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 142.663 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 1.654 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 3.442 MB/s

----------------------------------
WD VelociRaptor 300 GB
----------------------------------

Sequential Read : 105.188 MB/s
Sequential Write : 109.897 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 48.889 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 78.892 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 1.024 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 2.871 MB/s

Have to say it's performance impressed me. Wasn't expecting such a difference in read speeds, although unsurprisingly the F3 still commands the lead in seq. writes. Noisier under load than the F3 but again no big surprise as the F3 is one very quiet drive.

Ziggy4 · 18 Mar 2010 at 21:31

Doh! Should have run the above with the latest version of CDM. Here's the caviar Black at least.

GSXR Gaz Mc · 22 Mar 2010 at 21:59

heres my f3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Samsung F3 1TB
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sequential Read : 144.591 MB/s
Sequential Write : 141.032 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 48.100 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 65.426 MB/s

magick · 23 Mar 2010 at 10:49

How much more noisy is the WD over the Samsung?

Matty_Boy · 23 Mar 2010 at 14:51

I replaced an old Hitachi 250GB drive with a Samsung F3 1TB as my main boot drive - very pleased with the performance of the Samsung. Faster transfers to my WHS and a lot quieter!

bhavv · 23 Mar 2010 at 15:55

Ive used Samsungs for a very long time now - I've had two each of 500 Gb T166s, F1 1Tb, and now F3 1Tb. The thing I like the most is the price, silence and speed of the drives (Well, the F1 was rather sluggish, but I only realised after getting the F3s and windos became much quicker).

Ive had a T166 and F1 fail. The T166 was covered by samsungs warranty which got me a new drive back within 24 hours, but now they dont service OEM drives anymore and you have to return them through the place you bought them at, so it will take longer.

So always keep two incase one fails, or an External HD. HD's tend to fail more than anything else.

Ziggy4 · 23 Mar 2010 at 16:56

How much more noisy is the WD over the Samsung?

Quite a bit, though the WD is not exactly what I'd call a noisy drive, just that the Samsung Fx drives are so damn quiet.