Samsung 2TB Drives, Anyone used one? Options

[karlm]

Hi all -

I never thought I would say this, but 4TB of storage is not enough. So I am looking to replace two of my 1TB drives with two 2TB drives, or maybe 3's if I get paid this month. Anyway I have been using a WD Black 1TB for my boot, and the other 3 drives are the Samsung F3 drives. Loving them, more than adequate performance, and quiet too (as opposed to the WD) so I am sort of leaning towards the Samsungs for the new 2TB drives - but all of the ones I can see (F4's) are eco this and green tree hugging crap that. So the question I am asking is are they OK speed wise? I understand that they have gone back to 5400rpm but the drives use less platters - should this make them comprable, or is this all marketing BS?
FWIW, I won't be RAIDing these drives, they get backed up to externals, so the green portion turning itself off shouldn't be an issue. The drives are primarily a Steam store and also a media store.
Hope I haven't been too vague.
Cheers.

[Harmonic Cacopho...]

I own at least one or two of every cheap 2TB on the market. Samsungs, Seagates, Western Digitals, Hitachis. Not one of them has gone wrong. They can all do sustained file transfers via gigabit LAN at about 90MB/s. I think the best all round are the Seagate Low Powers, but really, they're much of a muchness.

The only disk I notice any speed hit on is my older WD 1TB Greens, but I guess the data density makes up for it with the bigger disks. I'll be moving up to 3TBs if they get cheaper, though I heard something about China limiting export on/raising the prices on magnets or something, so disk pricing may go up.

Anyway, since you say 4TB is not enough, I presume you've got a whole bunch of video. This doesn't need a speedy disk at all. So feel free to get the cheapest 2 or 3TB disks you can get, and keep one of your speedier disks in for programs.

[karlm]

Thanks HC. Yeah , like I stated, they are primarily video store (editing gets done on a different machine) and the Steam store. I guess the Steam store is of primary importance as the games are all stored on it (about 950GB atmo and looking to get Space Marine which will tip the 1TB over) but as all the other drives are 5900(?)RPM and better, most being 7200, this was my question. On paper, the Hitachi drives seem pretty good, with 64MB cache and 7200RPM, but when they were still IBM drives, I had plenty that well earned the knickname of DeathStars ... guess I will just bite the bullet and maybe get one of each (Hitachi and Samsung) and see how they fare.

[bowiee]

I love all my current Samsung drives, that being said now that Samsung sold out their drive manufacturing division, I have turned to Hitachi and have found them to be as good.

EDIT: I think Seagate brought their hard drive division, ah yes here it is.

This post has been edited by bowiee: Sep 1 2011, 11:20 PM

[Harmonic Cacopho...]

Jesus, 1TB of games? I think you need to stay away from Steam sales!

If they're all actually installed and you want them ready to go to play games from at decent speed... well 1TB SSDs don't exist yet. In a decent gaming system, any HDD is going to be the bottleneck that leaves you looking at loading screens, but if you really need vast space for cheap, then 2TB green/LP disks at ~$80 is the best you're going to get.

I had heard that Samsung stopped making HDDs, but didn't know they got eaten by Seagate. That's quite a shame, there'll only be three brands left, now. But maybe it'll make for better Seagate disks, with them incorporating Samsung patents or whatever.

EDIT: Just finished that article:

This latest merging of hard drive businesses comes a little over a month after Western Digital agreed to purchase Hitachi’s hard drive division for $4.25 billion in combined cash and stock.

So we're down to just two brands now :(

I did like what they said about Seagate getting ready to kick ass in the SSD market though. Would be nice to have SSDs continue to get bigger and cheaper as quickly as possible.

If you're worried about Hitachis still being bad - well the only disks that have ever died on me have been in the last year or so: two WDs - an old 500GB that saw a lot of service, a relatively new 1TB, I think that shouldn't have gone wrong, and a Samsung 500GB... but that one I understood, because it had been lugged back and forth to my Dad's place in a bag a few dozen times, getting banged around, dodgily connected to a caddy with no case.

This post has been edited by Harmonic Cacophony: Sep 2 2011, 12:05 AM

[aliali]

As far as the Samsungs go be aware of http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd..._bbs_msg_id=386
New drives should have the latest firmware already but worth checking before you use them for data storage.

[mudg3]

You can get hitachi 3tb drive for $149 currently I got 5 from the states for 120 each delivered.

[fajw]

You can get hitachi 3tb drive for $149 currently

Where?

[mudg3]

Scorptech If you buy the right amount.

[harhis23]

I would personally recommend Samsung, I've been using my drives for more than 2 years now and never have I encountered a problem.

[Opy]

If you are after a Samsung 2TB, be fast.

I got notified of this today:

Until 2pm tomorrow (2pm 8/Sep/11) you can buy
Samsung 2TB F4EG HDD - SATA II 3.0Gbs, 32MB Cache, 3 Years Warranty, HD204UI
for $77.95 plus postage

http://www.expresspcparts.com.au/Daily-Deals/

[karlm]

Cheers Opy - nice find there. Usually I get mine from PCCG, as I am in the Victorian NE, but with that bargain I got them express shipped to me for $15 less than buying just the drives (without shipping!)

Guess I owe you a beer :)

[Opy]

Beer is good. ;)

[Cybes]

I never thought I would say this, but 4TB of storage is not enough.

I have to ask: What are you doing, buffering Hubble for NASA?

[mudg3]

I never thought I would say this, but 4TB of storage is not enough.

I have to ask: What are you doing, buffering Hubble for NASA?

Tell that to the guy with 25tb of drives <<< :P

[karlm]

I never thought I would say this, but 4TB of storage is not enough.

I have to ask: What are you doing, buffering Hubble for NASA?

lol. No, 4TB wouldn't even hold a days worth of data for just the australian radio telescope array :) Mostly images and video footage of cycle races (road and MTB), 1TB is purely for my Steam folder (have all the games installed there - on a 512K link, takes days to D/l one game), some space for recorded tv (shows are never on at the time you are free) and on and on :)