[Eugene]

Earlier this year, Samsung was the first manufacturer to follow Seagate's lead in reaching significantly beyond the 100 GB/platter barrier that has plagued the industry for some time now. The 250 GB SP2504C also represent's the firm's first attempt at a native SATA design. How peppy is Samsung's latest? StorageReview puts the SpinPoint P120 up to the test!

Samsung SpinPoint P120 Review

[davidedney123]

Typical Samsung drive really - painfully average. At least it's quiet. Surprised by the reliabilityof the P80. I suppose the margin for error in the reliability survey is such that you could call 34% average though

On the Sequential Transfer rate graph the legend says "Series1" and "Series2" instead of inside tracks, outside tracks or whatever term is used!

Dave

[Will Rickards]

Like the color changes!
Mostly what I expected of this drive.

[Eugene]

davidedney123, on Nov 15 2005, 01:24 PM, said:

Typical Samsung drive really - painfully average.  At least it's quiet.  Surprised by the reliabilityof the P80.  I suppose the margin for error in the reliability survey is such that you could call 34% average though

On the Sequential Transfer rate graph the legend says "Series1" and "Series2" instead of inside tracks, outside tracks or whatever term is used!

Dave

Thanks for pointing out the STR error, should be fixed.

Regarding the 34% reliability... the P80's calculation is based on a combined 1200 drive-years of use... relatively speaking, its a higher-confidence score (lots of data) than many other drives.

[whiic]

Reliability Database includes following fields for each drive family:
Family ----- Released ----- Number Of Comments ----- Percentile

Could it be possible to add a "combined drive-years of use"-field for data reliability evaluation purposes? What's the criteria of combined drive-years for a drive X, after which it is given a Percentile (i.e what's the minimum floor of participation required)?

This post has been edited by whiic: 15 November 2005 - 06:24 PM

[hddmaster]

I think SR needs to reconsider testing only the "flagship" model of a model of drives. Take for example this Samsung series that tops out with a 2 platter 250GB model. It may be at a disadvantage against a drive such as the Seagate 7200.9 500GB which also has 125GB platters but 4 of them so it will have shorter seeks (but more head switches).
And then you can turn this around, of course the 4 disk Seagate is going to have more noise, heat and power. Its a 500GB versus a 250GB! SR's conclusions tend to speak to a model line, not a specific model and that just doesn't seem accurate or fair.

At this point we know that even drives of the same model can have vastly different designs. Seagate 7200.9 again makes a good example. The 160GB model acheives this with a single 160GB platter, yet the 500GB uses 4x125GB platters! How can the 500GB speak to the performance of the 160GB model?
I think it would be more beneficial to break it into 2 or 3 capacity points for each generation of testing. I know this would increase the workload at SR, but would give more meaningful comparisons.
After all, this 250GB Samsing is competing against 200-300GB Maxtor, Seagates and Hitachis of which we don't really know the performance. It is not competing against 500GB monsters. Who is to say that the smaller Seagate and Hitachi doesn't have better power heat and noise?

[stefanpi]

Just looked at my local retailer and they list a 300GB Spinpoint P-series ATA drive, cant find anything about this drive on Samsungs site - could it be a typo?

[CityK]

stefanpi, on Nov 17 2005, 09:02 AM, said:

Just looked at my local retailer and they list a 300GB Spinpoint P-series ATA drive, cant find anything about this drive on Samsungs site - could it be a typo?

Perhaps the P should have been a T.

[stefanpi]

Yup google'd it and found the T model. Btw i just bought a Spinpoint P120 250GB pata and boy are they silent

And it feels much faster than my DM9 200GB pata, even a tad faster than my DM10 300GB sata but it could be because its a fresh XP install.

This post has been edited by stefanpi: 17 November 2005 - 05:19 PM

[watcher]

No 'specific' mention that I can see that the drive tested from the outset was actually the 250GB model SP2504C beyond the title of the transfer graph jpeg and too many references to family designation as a whole ie P120. Only the SP2504C model can be assured of actually using 2x 125GB per platter so results are not representative of both drive models within family.

While on the subject of transfer graphs I had issue with this:

Quote

Though it should not have any bearing on high-level performance, the SpinPoint delivers one of the more jagged transfer rate graphs around.

If it has no bearing then why even mention it? Or if you're going make it an issue then to be fair you should link to graphs of other drives 'within the review' as well with explanation of importance and relevance rather than just slight the Samsung for something that in your own words comes across as contradictory and of little importance. Succinctly, put up or shutup.

The SP2504C is no longer the flagship model so should NOT have been compared to other manufacturers latest flagship models. T series is out there already and SR is way too late 'as usual' reviewing Samsung drives and comparing them directly with their true contemporary competitors ie the DM10 250GB, 7200.8 or 7200.9 250GB models etc.

Please, compare apples with apples and do it in a timely fashion so that one of them is not left rotting in the bottom of the barrel to be 'eventually' and disfavorably compared to others just picked.