Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB: Cool, Quiet, and Quick
by Gary Key on July 9, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
iPEAK Video/Audio Tests
The iPEAK based Video/Audio benchmarks are designed around simulating media encoding and HTPC activities. These are basic benchmarks at this time but this section will be expanded in the future. These benchmarks are CPU intensive in nature but also require a balanced storage system with the ability to handle read and write requests simultaneously in a very efficient manner. Using iPEAK also effectively removes the CPU from the equation, allowing us to focus on the hard drives.
The AnyDVD benchmark is heavily weighted to sequential write requests with the PMR based drives generally finishing ahead of the other 7200rpm drives. The Samsung drive trails the T7K500 by 1% and the Seagate 7200.10 by 7% although these differences are minor.
The Nero Recode 2 benchmark is weighted to streaming read requests but is balanced by continuous write operations near the end of the test. This benchmark is one of the most demanding ones in our test suite with the disk being active the entire trace file with several 100% utilization peaks. This benchmark historically favors the Seagate PMR offerings. The Samsung drive finishes ahead of the other 7200rpm drives and outperforms the T7K500 by 6%.
iPEAK Game Installation Tests
Our iPEAK based Game Installation benchmarks simply show the ability of the hard drive to write data as quickly as possible to the disc based upon the installation software instructions. As detailed in our iPEAK setup description we installed the games from our source drive in order to eliminate the optical drive bottleneck. In separate application timing we witnessed basically the same percentage spread when installing the games via our DVD drive so these results are representative of actual installation performance.
The Raptors once again finish at or near the top in our gaming tests due to their rotational and random access speed advantages. The Samsung SpinPoint T166 takes top honors in the 500GB category by finishing 1% ahead of the Seagate drive in Sims 2 and less than half of a percent ahead of the Hitachi 500GB drive in Battlefield 2. However minor the differences, though, a win is a win.
iPEAK Game Play Tests
The iPEAK based Game Play tests are centered on the benefits of having a hard disk that can load non-linear or sequential data files quickly without interrupting the flow of the game.
When it comes to game play in our iPEAK tests the Samsung drive falters slightly which surprised us considering the other results. We see the drive being about 5% slower in Battlefield 2 and 13% in Sims 2 when compared to the Hitachi T7K500, although in both benchmarks it finishes ahead of the Seagate 7200.10 500GB drive.
We need to remember our iPEAK tests reflect pure hard drive performance and will be mitigated by the system platform components as we will see in our application tests.
The iPEAK based Video/Audio benchmarks are designed around simulating media encoding and HTPC activities. These are basic benchmarks at this time but this section will be expanded in the future. These benchmarks are CPU intensive in nature but also require a balanced storage system with the ability to handle read and write requests simultaneously in a very efficient manner. Using iPEAK also effectively removes the CPU from the equation, allowing us to focus on the hard drives.
The AnyDVD benchmark is heavily weighted to sequential write requests with the PMR based drives generally finishing ahead of the other 7200rpm drives. The Samsung drive trails the T7K500 by 1% and the Seagate 7200.10 by 7% although these differences are minor.
The Nero Recode 2 benchmark is weighted to streaming read requests but is balanced by continuous write operations near the end of the test. This benchmark is one of the most demanding ones in our test suite with the disk being active the entire trace file with several 100% utilization peaks. This benchmark historically favors the Seagate PMR offerings. The Samsung drive finishes ahead of the other 7200rpm drives and outperforms the T7K500 by 6%.
iPEAK Game Installation Tests
Our iPEAK based Game Installation benchmarks simply show the ability of the hard drive to write data as quickly as possible to the disc based upon the installation software instructions. As detailed in our iPEAK setup description we installed the games from our source drive in order to eliminate the optical drive bottleneck. In separate application timing we witnessed basically the same percentage spread when installing the games via our DVD drive so these results are representative of actual installation performance.
The Raptors once again finish at or near the top in our gaming tests due to their rotational and random access speed advantages. The Samsung SpinPoint T166 takes top honors in the 500GB category by finishing 1% ahead of the Seagate drive in Sims 2 and less than half of a percent ahead of the Hitachi 500GB drive in Battlefield 2. However minor the differences, though, a win is a win.
iPEAK Game Play Tests
The iPEAK based Game Play tests are centered on the benefits of having a hard disk that can load non-linear or sequential data files quickly without interrupting the flow of the game.
When it comes to game play in our iPEAK tests the Samsung drive falters slightly which surprised us considering the other results. We see the drive being about 5% slower in Battlefield 2 and 13% in Sims 2 when compared to the Hitachi T7K500, although in both benchmarks it finishes ahead of the Seagate 7200.10 500GB drive.
We need to remember our iPEAK tests reflect pure hard drive performance and will be mitigated by the system platform components as we will see in our application tests.
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8steve8 - Sunday, July 15, 2007 - link
ive had 2 of these drives for 8 months now,, so the review seems late.obviously the new samsung 1TB 3platter drives are immensly interesting.
the specs and samsungs history in this market makes it seem to be the drive to have in the next 12 months.
natebsi - Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - link
I've purchased 3 of these drives, and 2 have failed in about 4 months time. One was in my pc, the other was in an external enclosure. (The one still working is in my HTPC).2 out of 3 failures in such a short time is pretty bad.
However... the reason I won't be buying any more Samsung drives is not because they failed, but because they don't have an advance replacement program. That was fairly shocking to me! I took it for granted after sending it failed drives to Maxtor and WD (both of whom have outstanding service when it comes to that, BTW).
Hard drive failures are a given, and I can't deal with that. A drive failure is too critical a problem to wait for a replacement more than a couple days. In my opinion anyway...
Final Hamlet - Thursday, July 12, 2007 - link
Backup + cooling = No need to worry.I remember having a 20gb Western Digital Caviar, which did me the favour of giving me a special sign that it had come near the end of it's life, so I could replace it in time. If only all HDs could issue that kind of warning...
TA152H - Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - link
Oh boy. Useful to know this. I guess I will wait to buy them.You're a lot more forgiving than I am. I really hate hard drive failures, because they take so long to recover from. It's the worst type of failure in my opinion. And also, because I'm stupid and go a few days without doing a proper backup sometimes. So, for hard disks, I value reliability more than any other part (except maybe the power supply, which tends to screw up a lot of things further down the food chain).
The replacement policy shows that Samsung doesn't quite get it. They don't seem to understand how important reliability is, or how important it is to get someone up and running again as quickly as possible. I always carry a spare or two if it's for a RAID array, but Samsung is selling these to residential people too, and no one likes being without their computer, and they aren't going to keep spare hard disks.
natebsi - Thursday, July 12, 2007 - link
It's not that I'm forgiving, its more that I've excepted the fact(or at least high probability) that any hard drive I buy today, from any manufacturer, will fail. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe 5 years from now.So as a consequence, I am extremely diligent about backing up my data. I use both RAID and a backup service from mozy.com for the most important data.
Also, I hear a lot of talk about how "Maxtor sucks!" or "Seagate sucks" or "<insert manufactuer> sucks!". The simple fact of the matter is: Without factual data from the hard drive makers themselves, there will NEVER be any method of determining which hard drive manufacturers are the most reliable. And none of them will ever produce that data for obvious reasons.
Case in point: I've had more hard drives than I can even remember in the last 15+ years, and I truly can't think of "the best manufacturer". Every time I've thought I had a great series of drives, I had failures at some point that made me rethink it. So...... backup, backup, backup, and go with the company that provides the best warranty, service, etc. Which, IMHO, ain't Samsung.
TA152H - Thursday, July 12, 2007 - link
Well, you have some factual data from Seagate, look at their warranty.Hard drives can fail, but I have had none from Seagate fail, and this included drives over 5 years old, actually, some over 10. And this goes back to the ST-255 and ST-251, although you'd have to low level them every few years because they were steppers. Crashtors I never bought, but they were so widely recognized as bad, it was way past anecdotal. IBM's drive problems were also not anecdotal, they were widely publicized and even recognized by IBM. Western Digital's were similar, although I don't remember exactly what Western Digital did to fix it. I had bought two of their drives around that time, and both died as well. So, it's not just people blabbing, some of it is very clearly bigger than that. I have never seen Seagate get into that situation, and they sell a lot of drives.
I actually did have a Seagate fail, but it was some 10K monster made in the 1990s, and it was left in a garage for about three years. I can't really blame it for that, it probably got stepped on and kicked and slept on by a raccoon. But, it worked before it's garage experience. Having used well over 200 Seagate hard drives over the years, just my own, not for a company, that's not a bad success rate, especially since the ones in my main machines I don't change often. The one on this machine is from 2001, and doesn't make a sound and is on 24/7. Try that with a Samsung.
I do agree, back up early and often. I forget to sometimes though, I wish I didn't, but I do. You really have no control over it, it can happen any time, so the only way to address that truly is to make sure the impact of it happening is limited. But, I'm a moron, I don't do it as often as I should, and I just don't seem to be able to get into the habit of it.
Gary Key - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
I am not too impressed with the Hybrid drives and Vista right now. ;) We will have that review up next week.crimson117 - Monday, July 9, 2007 - link
How do I read the full blurb? On the main page, I seebut I can't find anywhere that shows the remainder of the text. It's not anywhere in the article.
crimson117 - Monday, July 9, 2007 - link
I found the whole blurb when I do a search for the article.Frumious1 - Monday, July 9, 2007 - link
If you click on the storage header that will take you to a page where you can see all the intro text for those articles - same goes for the other areas, of course. Not like it really matters much, does it?