[swinster]

Hi all,

I'm looking to improve a my storage array. Whilst I would love to get some WD Velociraptors, I can't justify the cost for the storage return.

1.5TB drives are about the best value disk at the moment, but of course performance and noise are both concerns. I am looking to build a 3 disk RAID 5 array, thus giving a total USABLE storage space of 3TB.

To do this I have been considering either the Western Digital WD15EARS Caviar Green, or the Samsung HD154UI Spinpoint F2 DT EcoGreen.

I have read a little but about getting the alignment of the partitions on the WD drives right, but with regard to noise I have also read that these are superior to the Samsung, even though the Samsung drives have NCQ. With regard to performance I have read good things about both, but does anyone have experience of either, or any other drives in this range.

Cheers,

This post has been edited by swinster: 08 February 2010 - 09:15 PM

[Brian]

What's your timeline? I ask because Samsung *just* updated their EcoGreen line, so the conversation might change a little if you want to consider the EcoGreen F3.

http://www.storagere..._drive_released

[swinster]

Brian, on 09 February 2010 - 12:41 PM, said:

What's your timeline? I ask because Samsung *just* updated their EcoGreen line, so the conversation might change a little if you want to consider the EcoGreen F3.

http://www.storagere..._drive_released

Hi Brian,

As with all things, if there's a deal to be had, I can wait a little.

I was looking at the Samsung F3, but yesterday I couldn't find the 1.5TB drive listed on their website - only the 1 and 2TB versions. This seem to be backed up by certain retailer swho only have the 1 and 2TB drives available (i.e. http://www.scan.co.u...nd-II-1TB-2TB).

I will look over the link you posted (but haven't yet) - are you saying the the F3 is better still than the F2 and the WD?

Cheers

Edit - in fact just looked at the Samsung site again and ther is no mention of the F3 or F3EG, just F1 and F2

This post has been edited by swinster: 09 February 2010 - 11:45 AM

[Brian]

I haven't seen an F3 EcoGreen yet - so I can't comment on its quality, though it could be "better" than the F2, is nothing else other than it's larger capacity. The little bells and whistles could be improved too, but again, we won't know until we get one in house for testing.

I mostly just brought it up as you may see the F2's being discounted soon and I just wanted to make sure you knew that Samsung had a newer model of drive than the one you were considering.

As to what's better...price being equal, the much larger cache of the WD should be a nice performance advantage. Even the F3 only goes up to 32MB.

[swinster]

Brian, on 09 February 2010 - 04:43 PM, said:

I haven't seen an F3 EcoGreen yet - so I can't comment on its quality, though it could be "better" than the F2, is nothing else other than it's larger capacity. The little bells and whistles could be improved too, but again, we won't know until we get one in house for testing.

I mostly just brought it up as you may see the F2's being discounted soon and I just wanted to make sure you knew that Samsung had a newer model of drive than the one you were considering.

As to what's better...price being equal, the much larger cache of the WD should be a nice performance advantage. Even the F3 only goes up to 32MB.

Many thanks Brian. I does realise that the term "better is very woolly, and it would be nice to have some stats. but from what I have read an my own intuition, I was erring toward the WD drives - not only because of the 64MB cache, but also based because it seem to have a slight edge in the quietness stake - Although how scientific this is is anyone's guess (Silent PC Review havn't updated thier tests for a while either).

My main concern was how they would perform as part of a RAID 5 array. This would actually be controlled via a Windows 2003 server - although the Motherboard provides the RAID functionality. I'm sure if I partition them with the WD tool (if Win 2003 doesn't do the right job? - I'm sure you posted that XP has issue with alignment) prior the building the array, then everything should be OK.

[Brian]

On the noise issue, we're not going to even try to emulate silent PC, but we will be posting relative sound measures for drives we test. We hope to have the first reviews up soon.

[swinster]

Brian, on 09 February 2010 - 05:51 PM, said:

On the noise issue, we're not going to even try to emulate silent PC, but we will be posting relative sound measures for drives we test. We hope to have the first reviews up soon.

Do you/will you test for RAID performance? I think more an =d more people are buy drives for this purpose, some in NAS devices, some (like me) in a PC based system.

[Brian]

We'll try to get there, but at first it will be single drives. It's not the easiest thing right now to request five of a drive from mfg's. Some are having trouble even meeting basic review requests.

[swinster]

Brian, totally understand with regard to getting hold of multiple disks.

Are you actually in the process of testing any 1.5TB disks at the moment and if so, when do you expect preliminary test results and comparisons?

Many thanks.

[Brian]

We just have 1TB and 2TB right now, nothing in between. Those both have threads in the HDD forum and prelim benchmarks have been posted.