Fastest 500 - 1000 GB HDD

[wand3r3r]

Hopefully this is not a repost, I read a few pages of posts and didn't see this DIRECTLY addressed.

I am looking to get another HD, I have the 640GB WD AAKS which was one of the fastest drives a year ago but now I'd like to upgrade/get an additional HD. I have tried looking at HD comparisons but I haven't seen any recent comparisons with ALL the latest drives in one place and additionally I assumed there are readers who are more up-to-date then I am.

Possible Hard drives of interest just from a quick glance:
Samsung F3 1 TB
WD Black 1TB / 640 GB
Seagate 7200.12 1TB

I think I will pick up an eSata external case and drop my current WD 640 AAKS into the external case being the newer HD should be a bit faster. I am interested in SSD's but they are not an option until there is a reasonable amount of storage for a LOT cheaper then current prices.

Does anyone know which is the best choice, or other suggestions as these are random choices from the latest available that I am aware of. I would consider 500GB HD's but it seems the sweet spot with pricing leans towards the slightly larger drives (640-1000 GB).

[Zap]

The fastest big spindle hard drives are the ones at 7200 RPM with 500GB per platter. This currently means the Samsung F3 or the Seagate 7200.12. AFAIK no other company does 500GB platters with 7200RPM. IIRC the WD Black 640GB/1TB still used 333MB platters.

Oh yeah, maybe the 2TB WD Black, but that's around $300.

[wand3r3r]

Originally Posted by Zap

The fastest big spindle hard drives are the ones at 7200 RPM with 500GB per platter. This currently means the Samsung F3 or the Seagate 7200.12. AFAIK no other company does 500GB platters with 7200RPM. IIRC the WD Black 640GB/1TB still used 333MB platters.

Oh yeah, maybe the 2TB WD Black, but that's around $300.

Good point on the platters. If the WD Black 1 TB uses 3 platters then it's probably somewhat slower. On that same point, why would 2 -320 GB platters be any slower then 2 - 500 GB platters? Or does that just come down to density? According to this review on the Samsung F3 1 TB it's pretty much the fastest HDD bit-tech has tested.

[link]http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/10[/link]


Unfortunately there isn't a WD Black 1 TB, although they do compare to the WD Black 2 TB model and the F3 is easily faster (BUT considering less platters = quicker then the 1TB may be faster then the 2 TB Black model but I'm not sure on that point). I would purchase the F3 immediately, however, the 3 year warranty throws me off. What a lame warranty when the other competitors (At least the 7200.12) have 5 year warranties. I've had a couple HDD's break in the first few years so I don't really have any trust in the long term lifespan. It's a really difficult decision because the F3 seems to clearly trounce the 7200.12 but the warranty is outdated...

[Zap]

Originally Posted by wand3r3r

On that same point, why would 2 -320 GB platters be any slower then 2 - 500 GB platters? Or does that just come down to density?

Aside from access times and latency, the STR (sustained transfer rate) of a hard drive usually correlates to the RPM and platter density. More data per platter means higher density means better STR... as long as they don't drop the RPMs (like all those 5400/5900RPM drives on the market).

Originally Posted by wand3r3r

I would purchase the F3 immediately, however, the 3 year warranty throws me off. What a lame warranty when the other competitors (At least the 7200.12) have 5 year warranties.

Actually, the 7200.12 has a 5 year warranty if you buy it in a retail box, otherwise it has a 3 year warranty. WD Black still has a 5 year warranty.

I would be more concerned with the ease in obtaining warranty service. Traditionally Seagate and WD have been pretty reasonable, but not sure about Samsung and Hitachi.

Seriously, 3 year warranty length was the standard nearly forever, until several years ago all major manufacturers (as if they communicated it and agreed to it) dropped warranty to 1 year, before raising it back up to various levels.

With that all being said, for me a hard drive is a commodity and I buy based on needs and don't worry too much about warranty. In 4-5 years you may as well buy something newer, faster, more capacious and cheaper.