Need HDD recomendation based on areal density

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bore_u2_death

Limp Gawd
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Sep 9, 2010
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Which hard drives on the market have the highest areal density and what is the lowest capacity available at that density per platter? I want the cheapest HDD available with the highest areal density made for SATA II, 7200 RPM 3.5" size. Thank you.
UPDATE: My new question is what are some good hard drives in the 500GB range that are single platter?
 
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Samsung F4s 2TB drives have 3 666 GB platters.

Also current WDC Green 2TB may have 666 GB platters as well. Neither are 7200 RPM.

I am not sure that currently anyone is using 666 GB platters in any other drives.

Other than that 500GB / platter drives are popular.

WDC Black 500GB are now 1 platter drives. I believe these are $55 US.
 
Samsung F4 is also 7200rpm, and comes in 'short-stroked' capacities like 320GB as well; which uses only one head i believe.

These push around 150MB/s+ so are pretty nice i think. Still i prefer 5400rpm disks.
 
sub.mesa said:
Samsung F4 is also 7200rpm, and comes in 'short-stroked' capacities like 320GB as well; which uses only one head i believe.
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You mean single platter? All the single platter drives I've seen use two heads (one on each side). And short-stroking means only using the outer part of the disk, which can be done by the user.

Anyway, I was not aware that Samsung had announced a 7200rpm HDD which uses 667GB platters. I only saw the 5400rpm models with that density. What Samsung model has 7200rpm 667GB platters?
 
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Thanks for the link! I did not know Samsung was making single-sided, single-platter disks. The spec sheet from their web page does not even mention it for that model (HD322GJ). But I see it on the press release, as well as the review you linked.
 
wkearney99 said:
Any particular reason you're looking for 1 platter drives?
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I would like a one platter drive because single platters usually get the best throughput. I plan on putting two in RAID and later buying another to increase performance incrementally.

And thank you all for your answers thus far, you have been a superb help to me :)
 
The platter density is the most important spec of a HDD, so yes ofcourse it's better to have a 1 500GB platter drive versus a 2x 250GB platter drive; that's a couple of generations behind.

Only one platter means you can get 5W with 7200rpm disk, and virtually no noise as well. Many people don't know what platters are and can't distinguish a 500GB HDD with two 250GB platters from a 500GB HDD with just one platter. Of course the benchmarks will be clear about the difference; double the data density approaches double the sequential speeds.

And heat / mechanical components also play a part, the less mechanical components; the better.
 
Where are there test results showing better performance using one platter vs two? All other things being equal about the drives, of course.
 
I would say it would be the reverse. A two platter drive with the same areal density would be a little faster. But then it would be faster to raid 2 single platter drives versus a single dual platter drive giving the same total space.
 
wkearney99 said:
Where are there test results showing better performance using one platter vs two? All other things being equal about the drives, of course.
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Assuming the same capacity, a 2-platter drive would have roughly half the sequential performance of a 1-platter drive. Actually this just indirectly means double areal density; that's what get you your speeds.

You may have interpreted it as "1-platter 500GB is faster than 2-platter 1000GB"; which is not the case since both use the same platter-size and thus areal density.

I also thought i read something about Samsung using its 666GB platters for 1000GB disks; leaving a portion unused. If this is true, these could be the fastest 1TB disks especially towards the end of the capacity whose performance would decline less rapidly. But i can't find it using google now. Some Samsungs F4 are already shipping though.
 
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