1TB Samsung F3 HD103SJ 54.99 Shipped

[VirtualLarry]

Working in IT on the side for 14 years, I've always noticed retail drives have a lower failure rate and often age with less spindle noise. Call it drive manufacture conspiracy, binning quality of OEM drives, or shipping/packing proceedures, but I've always stuck with retail drives for my personal system and have never had a single one fail.

This. I try to stick to buying retail-boxed HDs, when the price premium isn't too bad.

Btw, Zap, you think that's bad, one drive in a cardboard wrapper? You should have seen the FOUR WD Green drives, that were all stuffed into a bubble mailer. Yep, two drives side-by-side, with 2 drives on top of each other. Four drives total. Don't order OEM drives from Frys.com.

(OTOH, I've ordered retail-boxed drives from frys.com, with no problems.)

 

[catilley1092]

I bought that same HDD when it was on sale last year at Newegg, it's a fast, quiet, reliable HDD. Plus, the packaging was better than the Caviar Black that I bought a few months earlier. It had to be RMA'd. The Samsung was in an anti-static plastic casing, inside of a protective cardboard sleeve. Much better packed than the Caviar Black, it was in more or less a shiny potato chip wrapper, and was not fully protected by the bubble wrap.

But when WD replaced it, it was packaged properly. And they gave me a 1TB, rather than the 750GB that I originally purchased.

I'm using the Samsung as a backup drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure that I bought a few months ago. I also highly recommend the brand to everyone. I'm even considering one of their "hybrid" HDD's for my notebook.

Cat

 

[Zap]

I'm using the Samsung as a backup drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure that I bought a few months ago. I also highly recommend the brand to everyone. I'm even considering one of their "hybrid" HDD's for my notebook.

Samsung has hybrid drives?

(OTOH, I've ordered retail-boxed drives from frys.com, with no problems.)

Retail boxed drives are already protected by their retail box.

BTW, segue into a true story. I once ordered two HDDs from Fry's. A box showed up containing some air pockets and the packing slip. No evidence of tampering. D:

Except external drives, but thats because Seagate (and other manufactures) are obsessed with 7200RPM drives in enclosures that don't breath and cook the drives like a furnace over years...

WD did that for a while too. I don't get it. Not like USB 2.0 will perform any better.

 

[trexpesto]

$54 at meritline after coupon riipped from bens:

MLCSALEUS0426NL1

http://www.meritline.com/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-internal-hard-drive---p-64798.aspx

 

[Elixer]

It's not all about G's, it's the impact it receives during shipping. Have you ever bought a retail hard drive? Do you think the box is that big just for shits and giggles? It's that big because of the protection it has during shipping.

While in the past, this was the case, all new retail HDs I have currently seen are barely bigger that the HD itself.
They have all moved to the HD in the antistatic bag, and then the plastic bookends to support it.

Since I had to RMA a HD (seagate) & SSD (OVZ) recently, I will see what comes back from them...

 

[her209]

Shipping from Amazon was atrocious. The plastic clam cases were wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrapped and then rubber banded together and then thrown into a box with no other protection.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Not liking this drive. Mine suffers from excessive vibration that randomly transfers to the rest of my case and is sometimes audible (when the room is quiet). It also has a completely random ticking noise. Not bad enough to RMA (doubt they'd even accept one for these issues), but going to replace it with a WD Black drive when I find a good deal. My previous drive was a 500GB Black drive and it has typical HDD grind, though it's less annoying than this Samsung's "ticking" and vibration noise.

 

[qliveur]

Mine doesn't do that at all. You most likely have a faulty drive and you should RMA it.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Could be, actually the ticking is more like typical grinding, but it just doesn't sound normal. Other people could check for the vibration if you have other dirves. Just touch them. My samsung clearly has more vibration than my two other WD drives. Mine actually has a subtle pulsating vibration which is easy to hear if I put my ear on the side panel. Can't try RMA untill I have a replacement.

 

[jjmIII]

Amazon has them for 59.99

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Spinpoint-3-5-Inch-Internal-HD103SJ/dp/B002MQC0P8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1304135274&sr=8-2

 

[catilley1092]

Samsung has hybrid drives?"



Retail boxed drives are already protected by their retail box.

BTW, segue into a true story. I once ordered two HDDs from Fry's. A box showed up containing some air pockets and the packing slip. No evidence of tampering. D:



WD did that for a while too. I don't get it. Not like USB 2.0 will perform any better.

Samsung & Seagate is under, or will soon be, under the same roof soon. The HDD will probably have which ever name the decide to stick on it.

Cat

 

[jjmIII]

Hope Seabait doesn't ruin Sammy!

 

[Vidman]

I rec'd mine the other day from Amazon. Packaging is shameful with one thin layer of bubble wrap around the clear plastic clam shell case. That said, drive works fine. At $54.99 I can dig it.