[Eugene]

The Samsung SpinPoint T166 provides an unassuming yet compelling alternative to 500-gigabyte offerings from the more well-known Hitachi, Seagate, and WD. In this review, we'll take a look at how Samsung's contender stacks up against the rest.

Samsung SpinPoint T166 Review

[E.T]

That WD isn't exactly "same generation" drive, already having much smaller data density.
WD5000AAKS would be more comparable model.


Looks like drive you tested was good sample considering vibration or didn't you test that?
Worst I've read is that even with soft mounting vibration noise is considerable.

[unhappy_mage]

Why does the T166 get the nod over the Hitachi T7K500? The T166 is more expensive than the T7K500, and slower in every test. The *only* thing it wins is noise. I don't get it.

[Dr. M]

unhappy_mage, on Aug 17 2007, 05:00 PM, said:

Why does the T166 get the nod over the Hitachi T7K500? The T166 is more expensive than the T7K500, and slower in every test. The *only* thing it wins is noise. I don't get it.

Man I was going to ask BOTH of the above questions too.
WD's AAKS series' 500gb drive is priced comparably and seems to kick the T166's butt on raw numbers, so why wasn't it compared in the review?

[# janet]

unhappy_mage, on Aug 17 2007, 04:00 PM, said:

Why does the T166 get the nod over the Hitachi T7K500? The T166 is more expensive than the T7K500, and slower in every test. The *only* thing it wins is noise. I don't get it.

unhappy_mage,
I use T166 and T7K500. t166 is a little faster, imho

[Pugwash]

I'm a fan of the T166, I've got 4 in a raid1 set in the machine I'm writing this on and I've used them in several machines I have at work. I've also got two more 250Gb spinpoints in external cases.

However, I recently ordered two more HD501LJ's but they arrived DOA, both getting stuck during a full format one at 16% and the second not even reaching 1%. I RMA'd them and got two replacements but one of these was DOA again getting stuck during a full format at 14%.

I've also seen several reports of the drive failing after a 3-4 weeks and like the ones I received DOA. From my experience it seems to be batches manufactured during December 2007 having the problem. It has certainly made me more reluctant to trust my data to the one drive that did work so I'm sending that back, buying two 750Gb drives of another manufacturer and raiding those for external storage instead.