• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

UATA.. Samsung's new spinpoint

D

dysaio

n00b
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
26
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Har...es/HardDiskDrive_SpinPointPSeries_HD160JJ.htm

Monarch just got these in - 160g for $135... about a $35 premium on 160gbs of normal SATA. Might be cheaper at the Egg, didn't check.

Question: Worth it? Will there be any realistic performance increase? I'm primarily concerned with gaming. If so, might just nab one of these as a primary HD, then a bigger normal SATA or even AGP for storage... These new drives also come with NCQ... I can't remember where, but I think I might've read something about NCQ actually *slowing* down HD speeds, I'll go see if I can dig up that article.

edit: here we go, it's just a review of a seagate - unfortunately, there aren't any SATA II w/NCQ reviews out yet, that I can find anyway

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/seagate-7200.7ncq/index.x?pg=1

In this review, it looks as though NCQ would have little to no benefit with non-multitasking applications (ie: gaming), which makes me :( Guess it might just be better to go with a normal SATA w/o NCQ and save a few bucks
 
dysaio said:
or even AGP for storage...
Click to expand...
Um... I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're mixing up terminology. AGP is for video cards.

NCQ doesn't help gaming any, just server-type applications. The favorite for gamers is a raptor from Western Digital for OS and games, with a big slower SATA drive for music/movies/whatever.
 
That is one pricey 160GB drive. You can get a 250GB drive for ~ $130.

However, Samsung claims a pretty zippy 845 Mb/sec transfer to/from disk, and read/write acoustics of 2.8 Bels. Seek time is still claimed to be 8.9ms average.

For comparison, A Hitachi 7K250 has an idle noise profile of 2.8 Bels, with a maximum to/from disk transfer rate of 757 Mbit/sec, and 8.5ms seek. A 7K250, with physical structure similar to the new Samsung drive in question, raises to/from disk transfer maximums to 843.2 Mbit/sec, meaning that Samsung is probably pretty close on the transfer rate figure.

That maximum transfer rate, if they are anywhere close on seek times, means that the drive will be pretty darn fast. Of course, Seagate claimed '8.0ms' for 7200.8, and seeks on it were slower than on a 7200.7 with '8.5 ms' :rolleyes:

These new Samsung drives also, at least on paper, appear to be marvelously quiet - with seek noises on the new Samsungs equal to idle noise on a Hitachi. Think about this for a second.

If it lives up to the paperwork, Samsung may have the drive to beat this generation, at least in the medium capacity range. However, the jury is still out on the logic parts of hard drive design that have a huge impact on performance, and Samsung has consitently lagged behind the other makers in this area. We shall see.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top