What do you think of SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3EG HD203WI 2TB versus WD 2TB external?

[blackrain]

I ordered the Samsung 2TB drive, but haven't opened it yet. There have been some reports of SMART errors in Newegg's reviews. Do you think this is just shipping mishandling? Anyone have one of these that can comment on the smart reports? Or at least how their drive has done? I imagine that many don't check smart reports.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152202

I ordered the Samsung for an HTPC for hi-def home video and movie backups. I plan on using it in a Thermaltake blacx dock with an HTPC dual-booting from winxp/win 7 x64. I assume that XP will read this drive fine.

I have been thinking about the WD 2TB external drive as an alternative. It seems to have really good reviews.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-471-_-Product

At first, I thought that an internal is always better than an external b/c of proprietary external case connections that love to go bad...and then there is the whole issue with opening the external drive and voiding the warranty. But I will be backing this 2TB drive up so that as long as I have an RMA, I won't really care about data recovery.

There is the 1 year versus 3 year warranty comparison. I know that the WD 2TB is an Elements drive, but I am surprised they only warranty a 2TB for 1 year.

And what is up with WDs "advanced format"? I understand that it is not compatible with windows xp. I suppose that is not a big problem since I am using this on windows 7 x64. But out of curiosity, is there a lot of benefit to the WD advanced format? And can WD drives be reformatted to remove the "advanced format" if I wanted to be able to use the drive on a windows xp machine.

 

[disastar]

I have two of these Samsung 2TB drives. I noticed the same reviews that caught your eye and check the SMART report for both drives. The SMART status contained no errors for both drives. It should be noted that I had to try several different SMART monitoring programs before I found one that could successfully communicate with the drives, so maybe some of those SMART error reports are not completely accurate. Anyways, I've had no issue with these 2x2TB drives nor with my 2x1.5TB Samsung drives.

 

[blackrain]

I have two of these Samsung 2TB drives. I noticed the same reviews that caught your eye and check the SMART report for both drives. The SMART status contained no errors for both drives. It should be noted that I had to try several different SMART monitoring programs before I found one that could successfully communicate with the drives, so maybe some of those SMART error reports are not completely accurate. Anyways, I've had no issue with these 2x2TB drives nor with my 2x1.5TB Samsung drives.

What did you use to get the smart status?

 

[disastar]

It was either Active@ Hard Disk monitor (free) or the S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring Tools on Sourcefourge (also free). I can't remember. HDTools did not work for some reason.

 

[dbcooper1]

I bought two of the 2TB Samsungs from Newegg and added them to my WHS box. I did a complete format first as a precaution and it took several hours but haven't had any issues with either.

 

[blackrain]

It was either Active@ Hard Disk monitor (free) or the S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring Tools on Sourcefourge (also free). I can't remember. HDTools did not work for some reason.

Here is my SMART report from Active@. What do you think? What is that 99% about? I have a 2-3 month old WD 500GB black that is 100% on everything.

 

[disastar]

Here is my SMART report from Active@. What do you think? What is that 99% about? I have a 2-3 month old WD 500GB black that is 100% on everything.

Looks very similar to the smart reports for both my drives. I don't think the 99% thing is a real rating. I did have problems with Active@Hard Disk Monitor. It runs a service that interferes with reading and writing operations of the HD (at least in my case). I uninstalled it and the problem went away.

 

[tynopik]

and then there is the whole issue with opening the external drive and voiding the warranty.

If you're going to buy the external so you can extract the drive inside, just remember it can't be any better the base WD 2TB drives.

compare the reviews of the Samsung 2TB and any of the WD 2TB internals and I think you'll have your answer

 

[blackrain]

Looks very similar to the smart reports for both my drives. I don't think the 99% thing is a real rating. I did have problems with Active@Hard Disk Monitor. It runs a service that interferes with reading and writing operations of the HD (at least in my case). I uninstalled it and the problem went away.

So was it smart monitoring tools off of sourceforge that you used? When I saw that it was command line/DOS-based, I immediately skipped it and went to the active@ program jsut because of the hassle of having to decipher the command lines. I guess I may have to revisit that. Would love a good SMART monitoring program with a GUI

 

[disastar]

So was it smart monitoring tools off of sourceforge that you used? When I saw that it was command line/DOS-based, I immediately skipped it and went to the active@ program jsut because of the hassle of having to decipher the command lines. I guess I may have to revisit that. Would love a good SMART monitoring program with a GUI

I'm not using any program to monitor the SMART data now. I just wanted to check it and establish a baseline. If the drives ever start to act up then I'll reinstall and check the values, but for now the drives are fine and my life is better if I don't obsess about hardware. Have a good backup and relax =).

 

[blackrain]

I'm not using any program to monitor the SMART data now. I just wanted to check it and establish a baseline. If the drives ever start to act up then I'll reinstall and check the values, but for now the drives are fine and my life is better if I don't obsess about hardware. Have a good backup and relax =).

Got it.

 

[FishAk]

I bookmarked this from someplace here on this forum...

http://forums.storagereview.com/ind...ead-this-first-before-putting-anything-on-it/