samsung vs seagate

ndeller · 27 Nov 2007 at 20:09

Hi,

I am after a couple of 500GB sata drives and saw the other day that there were some samsung 500GB 32mb cache hard drives available with good press.

However these now dont appear on overclockers but I have seen Seagate 500GB 32mb cache drives. Is there any difference in performance/quality at all.

Are the seagates just as good as the samsungs?

Thanks loads
Nick

rpstewart · 27 Nov 2007 at 20:35

The 500Gb Samsung F1s will probably be a bit quicker than the Seagate 7200.11s but it's anybody's guess when they'll be available. The F1 series was announced in June and the 750Gb parts only arrived in the last couple of weeks.

ndeller · 27 Nov 2007 at 21:03

Surely though they are all the same 7200 speed hard drives?

rpstewart · 27 Nov 2007 at 21:12

The spindle speed may be the same but that has virtually no bearing on the sustained data transfer rate. For example the 7200.11 can shift data about 30-40% faster than the original 36Gb Raptors despite the Raptor spinning almost 50% faster.

It's all down to how densly the data is packed onto the platter and hence how much data can be read by the heads on each revolution, the denser the data the more can be read per revolution. The Raptor mentioned above uses a 36Gb platter (although it's a small platter so would be more like a 70Gb one if it was the same size as the 7200.11), the 7200.11 uses 250Gb platters so over 3 times the density hence the spindle speed advantage of the Raptor is lost (until you compare seek times). The Samsung however raises the bar again by getting 333Gb onto each platter, early reports are suggesting that the sustained rate is close to 100MB/s.

ndeller · 27 Nov 2007 at 23:07

wow....thats some interesting info.

So likewise if I was to get the samsung 500gb 16mb cache these would still be quicker than the seagate 500gb 32mb cache?

Also if you say the samsung platters have 333gb per platter does that not mean that one platterhas 333 and the second platter has a not so full 167gb?
Is this not odd?

rpstewart · 28 Nov 2007 at 08:49

ndeller said:
So likewise if I was to get the samsung 500gb 16mb cache these would still be quicker than the seagate 500gb 32mb cache?

No, the 16Mb cache Samsungs are T series drives with the 166Gb platter and so are a fair bit slower than the 7200.11s.

ndeller said:
Also if you say the samsung platters have 333gb per platter does that not mean that one platterhas 333 and the second platter has a not so full 167gb?
Is this not odd?

No, it's standard practice. The platters are double sided so the 500Gb drive will have 2 platters and 3 heads, the second platter is only used on one side.

ElectroBlaster · 28 Nov 2007 at 15:26

I have both seagate and samsung drives and I think they are both the same quality wise. If only samsung would offer 5year warrantys then that really would be the icing on the cake

C64 · 29 Nov 2007 at 08:42

ANy reports on the noise levels of the .11's

Imy · 29 Nov 2007 at 08:48

Its worth noting that Seagates come with a 5 year warranty vs the Samsung's 3 year.

C64 · 29 Nov 2007 at 09:42

I would rather have 3 year warranty and quiet than noisy and 5 year not that i am slating the seagates no idea what the noise levels are like and want to know if the lottery of the .10's is still the same with .11's.A quiet pc really can make your experience all the greater.