Next best thing to a Spinpoint F1 320gb?

Cutshaw

Cutshaw

Cutshaw

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14 Nov 2007
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I've been hunting everywhere for one and no luck at all. I was hoping to order it today. I really don't want to go much larger than 320gb as that is more than I'm likely to need as it is. Basically a smallish and well performing drive. Cheaper the better. £50 is about my limit at the moment.
 
I just received a single platter 320Gb Seagate drive. However, I can't use it until I get the e4500 I am waiting for. Do a search on Google for Seagate ST3320613AS and you'll find it easily. Mine was £41.13 inc VAT and delivery.
 
get the 500gb samsung f1, its rumoured to have 2 * 320gb platters but with some of the platter areas inaccessible. I emailed ocuk to ask samsung but they wont, not quite customer service which people seem to think ocuk is good at.
 
clocka said:
get the 500gb samsung f1, its rumoured to have 2 * 320gb platters but with some of the platter areas inaccessible. I emailed ocuk to ask samsung but they wont, not quite customer service which people seem to think ocuk is good at.
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Why don't you just email Samsung support and ask yoursef...?
 
Cutshaw said:
I've been hunting everywhere for one and no luck at all. I was hoping to order it today. I really don't want to go much larger than 320gb as that is more than I'm likely to need as it is. Basically a smallish and well performing drive. Cheaper the better. £50 is about my limit at the moment.
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How about this Seagate http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-138-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat= It has a single platter, very quiet & fast, also has a 5yr warranty if that interests you? I have one myself and am very pleased with it :)
 
roadie said:
I just received a single platter 320Gb Seagate drive. However, I can't use it until I get the e4500 I am waiting for. Do a search on Google for Seagate ST3320613AS and you'll find it easily. Mine was £41.13 inc VAT and delivery.
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I'm waiting on a pair of them from OCUK, they went out of stock (on the website), the day after I ordered them, so it's holding my whole order back :(
 
Cutshaw said:
That does look good. My options seem to be this or bump my budget and get the F1 500gb. As was asked before, will going from one platter to two platters make a significant difference in performance?
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From reading around i believe you'll get more performance from a single platter design but i'm no expert on the subject, you'll probably need to speak to someone like RPStewart on here, he knows a fair bit about hard drives :)

If you dont need more than 250gb then I can wholeheartedly recommend the Seagate i linked to earlier, it even gets 5.9 on Vista ;) the only other drives I would consider above this is the new 640gb Western Digital drive as its better but not by a lot. Personally, imo its a great drive and i'm even considering 3 more for a 4 disk raid 0 setup.
 
Cutshaw said:
will going from one platter to two platters make a significant difference in performance?
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The number of platters makes no difference in performance, it's the data density of the platters which makes the difference - generally the higher the data density the higher the sustained transfer rate produced.
 
i cant find F1 320gb anywhere as well.

i really want this drive as the 1 platter use less power and more quiet.
 
As far as I've seen, the 500GB F1 is 2x250 platters, and the 750 is 3x250. So, if I'm getting Rpstewart right, the drives in the F1 family to go for are the 320gb and 1TB. The both use the higher density 3xxgb platters. There's a 640gb on it's way to fill the gap, which would have been ideal, but I've decided I'm going to get the Seagate.
 
Cutshaw said:
As far as I've seen, the 500GB F1 is 2x250 platters, and the 750 is 3x250. So, if I'm getting Rpstewart right, the drives in the F1 family to go for are the 320gb and 1TB. The both use the higher density 3xxgb platters. There's a 640gb on it's way to fill the gap, which would have been ideal, but I've decided I'm going to get the Seagate.
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Does this help?

"Given its use of 334GB platters, you would think Samsung would offer two additional F1 variants to accompany the terabyte model: a 334GB model using a single platter and a two-platter model with 668GB of capacity. And you would be wrong. Instead, Samsung is sticking to the industry-standard capacities embraced by its competitors, extending the F1 down to 750, 500, and 320GB. It's hard to see the rationale behind such a move. Those lower capacities leave a respective 250, 168, and 14GB of unused platter capacity on the table, which strikes us as unnecessarily wasteful."


Quote from here:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14200/1
 
dyson, i've seen that before, its the ONLY site i've seen that says it has 334/320gb platters, if it really did then it would be in all reviews and ppl wouldnt think the 750gb has 3*250gb's. Its just complete confusion around the platters for the F1 series, no-one knows, the retailers refuse to ask samsung and samsung ignore your emails.
 
OP: I hunted for the 320 F1 and after talking to serveral competitors, i quickly realised that they have either been discontinued or have simply stopped coming into the UK. Strange i know! I ended up getting an F1 TB and the performance is awesome. As you only need 250gb, i would suggest getting a WD AAKS. They are almost dead-on equal to the F1s and i sure you will not be sorry in purchasing one :)
 
hey rpstewart what pair of 500gb hds would you go for? please

or would you spend the extra for for some think biger
 
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