Samsung SpinPoint F3

[AdamK47]

I liked my SpinPoint F1. It was very fast and quiet. It looks like the new F3 drive has been released. This drive has two 500GB platters. The F1 used three 333GB platters. Are there any reviews for the F3 drives yet? It's available for purchase and is roughly $10 cheaper than the 1TB 7200.12.

 

[AdamK47]

Just placed an order for three of them. Going to be creating a 3TB RAID-0 array with them.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

sweet

 

[AdamK47]

Received the drives two days ago. I tried to stripe all three in one giant 3TB array. It would have worked if I didn't have the want/desire to clone my existing disk over to the array. Master Boot Record only goes up to 2TB. If it were GUID I could have had a 3TB array. Oh well... two of the drives are in an array for 2TB. I'll use the other drive a spare in case on drive dies.

 

[firewolfsm]

Well? Quieter? Noticeably faster?

 

[n7]

Yeah please show us some benchies

At least some HDTune & CrystalDiskMark; those are quick to run, & free.

 

[alexruiz]

I have the 500GB version, and I love the drive! I ran some quick tests Using Sisoftware's Sandra.
The disk can pull 140 MB/sec sequential read, and at the end of the platter it still reaches >75MB/sec. Will post the data later at home.

Like most of the ATers, I have enough storage to host my own pron website
Among the drives I got are a Seagate 7200.10 (320 GB), a WD caviar green EADS (1 TB), a Samsung Ecogreen F2 (1 TB), WD AAKS blue (2 x 500 GB) and a Hitacki Travelstar 7K1000.B

Sandra shows the WD blue and the 7200.10 topping at aprox 85 MB/sec max, the WD green at aprox 95 MB/sec max, the ecogreen F2 at aprox 110 MB/sec max and the 7K1000.B at aprox 110 MB/sec max. In real usage, the green drives do indeed perform slower, and feel sluggish. The 7K1000.B is noticeably faster than the rest of the drives except the F3, and the F3 is noticeably faster than the 7K1000.B

If you add the fact that the drive is almost silent, this is a winner!

 

[AdamK47]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
Well? Quieter? Noticeably faster?

I haven't benched them yet. The array is 71% full out of 2TB after cloning. I have roughly 500GB left, so I would assume a benchmark would be testing on the 500GB that's left. That wouldn't be testing the outer edges of the platters. I've been playing a few games and if I had to guess about the performance gain I would say things load about 30% to 40% faster than the single 1.5TB Seagate. That's just a gut feeling though. There have been tests of these drives on some forum. The sustained transfer rates were were close to 300MB per second on the outer edges with two in RAID-0. I don't think there are any official sites that have tested the F3 yet. The drive is quieter than the 1.5TB 7200.11 Seagate. The only time I hear them is when I boot up and they do that initial click sound.

 

[AdamK47]

ATTO
CrystalDiskMark 100MB
CrystalDiskMark 1000MB
HD Tach
HD Tune

This was with 590GB free on the 2TB array.

 

[AdamK47]

I tried CrystalDiskMark at 50MB to see what would happen... It's nice to see those two 32MB buffers working.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

Did they fix the multi-threaded read issue that the F1 DT and RAID had??

I had a 7200.10 which I just replaced with a funky WD Black 640GB to get ready to give to my mom, and according to HD Tune, the WD Black is almost twice as fast as the 7200.10. On this POS motherboard, that is. Sequential reads are usually Seagate's strong suit, but totally not a realistic guage for real-world use.

 

[Spikesoldier]

why not partition the array into 2tb and 1tb then clone over the 2tb

 

[AdamK47]

Originally posted by: Spikesoldier
why not partition the array into 2tb and 1tb then clone over the 2tb

I could do that, but I wanted a single partition for everything. At some point I'll split the operating system on a SSD (when they mature) and have apps and games on an HD array. That will take A TON of installing afterwards.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Do they have vibration problems that some of the F1s had? (The F1s exhibited noise from vibration in an oscillating manner)

 

[AdamK47]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Do they have vibration problems that some of the F1s had? (The F1s exhibited noise from vibration in an oscillating manner)

I never knew there was a problem with F1s vibrating. Mine had not exibited symptoms of this. My F3s seem fine. I placed my finger on the drive after booting up and couldn't feel any vibration. It's in an Antec 900 and I'm not sure if that absorbs vibration