Harddrive Overview Requested

[welo]

I am running out of disk storage and get annoyed having to decide what movies/series to delete

I need as much GB's per Baht that I can get! Performance is of no concern since it will serve as data tank only, built into a USB external enclosure (hopefully switching to eSATA in the future). Reliability and maybe low temperature should be considered.

Samsung would be the best price, and while not making the fastest harddisks the quality should be OK... right?

Has been a while since I digged into hardware reviews and if anybody can spare me hours of internet research I would really appreciate it

welo

[Tywais]

Actually I've been looking at hard drive reviews recently as I plan a major overhaul of my home system. Many forums have indicated the Samsung SpinPoint F3s are the best performing for the money 7200 rpm drives out now (both 500GB & 1000GB). I plan on getting two 500GB F3s and setting them for RAID0 and short stroking for performance. In your case you don't need that type of enhancement for use as a data storage system. The 500GB ones were around 1600 Baht when I looked a few days ago.

//edit - yeah, I just spent several hours over the weekend trying to clear space on my 1TB internal and 500GB external movie center drives. Had about 2GB left.

[garyh]

I have a few Samsung Hard drives running as raid :D

[filingaccount]

Performance for media playback is not important (besides, you lose the performance advantage using USB anyway). Heat, power consumption, noise and more importantly warranty, would be.

Get the one with the longest and "best" service and support. Eg. with DCOM supported HDD's you just go to the service center to exchange broken HDD's.

It is not a metter of if your HDD's will break, just when.

If you only store movies and TV shows on the HDD it is not critical to back up as the loss would only be an annoyance of redownloading the content.

[Supernova]

I am running out of disk storage and get annoyed having to decide what movies/series to delete

LOL. You're not alone... Up until recently, I've been running XP-Win7-Linux, but no more. I had to remove Win7 + Linux to recoup the extra disk space for data storage. Maybe it's time I build a new rig to replace my outdated nForce2 system.

[mezcal]

I had your same problem, so I went to Pantip in BKK and looked at the various options.

There are two main distinctions from what I saw: big and small (dimension-wise). 1TB in a small case can cost you double of a bigger one.

As I don't think about carrying it around I started focusing on the bigger (and MUCH cheaper) ones. There were lots of different WD (Western something...) and Buffalo (yes, buffalo! ;-) drives available and a few other brands I don't know. prices ranging from 3.400B to 5/6.000B for 1TB.

In the end I found the cheapest option: an ACER D110 1TB for 3.050Baht

It's Windows 7/XP/Vista compatible

Sata 3.5" preformatted

8MB cache min

and is supposed to save energy

has ACER software suite:

-Auto back up

-Synch

-archive

-update

it comes with a power supply and different interchangeable plugs+usb cable

the design is not very beautiful, but it has a metal case and is very robust

3years warranty

Sorry, don't know much about computers, but hope this will help you.

[lopburi3]

I have three of the Acer 1TB units and they run quiet and cool and the light level is fine even in bedroom (unlike Seagate Freeagent drives). But they come formatted for FAT so reformat to NTFS and don't use the software. You can even buy them in Lotus here in Bangkok (at a higher price).

[welo]

Thanks for all the replies.

Guess no problem with going for a Samsung then.

F1-F3 are different generations with F3 being the latest, I guess, EcoGreen only 5400rpm, hence the Spinpoint F3.

Unfortunately the JIB website is not available for me right now (TRUE problem?), can't remember which Samsung model I had looked at yesterday.

Anybody knows whether the Spinpoint F3 doesn't get too hot in an external enclosure, due to the 7200rpm? I'm not too worried though...

What about all this talking about different harddisk series optimized for different use-cases? I understand the difference between server and desktop usage (number of start cycles), but is there anything else to consider?

@filingaccount

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot that in Thailand harddrive warranties are not necessarily provided by the manufacturer but by various service centers. Had a warranty issue with Synnex (Seagate drive) and it was top-notch! Only 30 minutes and I had a brand new replacement drive.

Had yet another warranty issue with 7COM and they made me 'upgrade' to a bigger model for 400THB. Said they didn't have the smaller model in stock - but the harddisk was not that old and the size still everywhere on sale - talked to one other person who had the same experience. Whatever, the offer was still OK so I didn't bother to argue with them.

So which service centers one should go for?

DCOM

SYNNEX

@ACER D110 1TB

At Thanni the price difference between the bare Spinpoint F3 1TB drive and the Acer 1TB external drive is only 300 THB, not bad for the enclosure plus software. However, the harddrive used inside might be an older model or only 5400rpm.

Did anybody who owns the drive have a look at the harddisk model used?

I also wonder whether the warranty only applies to the harddrive or includes the enclosure. If it applies to the whole package not a bad deal.

I usually just leave the enclosure open and switch harddrives, so don't necessarily need another enclosure

welo

[Spoonman]

short stroking for performance.

Ive never heard of short stroking a HDD, what exactly is this and what performance gains can be had ??

Anybody thinking of upgrading their whole PC bear in mind most Motherboard these days have 6 sata ports buy a decent box to house enough HDD's to take advantage this.

Edited March 4, 2010 by Spoonman

[motoyen]

Are the 2TB drives available in Thailand?

[Spoonman]

Are the 2TB drives available in Thailand?

Yes, Western Digitals are approx 6500b.

[filingaccount]

@welo

I never had problems with DCOM service.

I would suggest NOT buying a "ready made" external enclosure from a "brand". The warranties are generally shorter, and the price higher than buying separate parts.

A reliable actively cooled enclose for 3.5" HDD's goes for about 1400-1650 depending on connections (USB, e-SATA, Firewire). A cheaper, but still very decent enclose sets you back 500-600 baht (USB only).

Granted the warranty is only one year on the enclosure but you get 5 years on the HDD (as opposed to 3 years for most "brand" enclosures)

[Supernova]

Anybody thinking of upgrading their whole PC bear in mind most Motherboard these days have 6 sata ports buy a decent box to house enough HDD's to take advantage this.

Building a new PC is on my "to-do" list, so I'll keep this in mind.

Thanks for the tip.

[Tywais]

A review on the Samsung and cost per GB > bit-tech

How short stroking works > Toms hardware

[Tywais]

Here is an idea what you can do with 4 Samsung F3s in RAID0 & short stroked.

[Naam]

Here is an idea what you can do with 4 Samsung F3s in RAID0 & short stroked.

impressive!

[welo]

So in short 'short stroking' is trying to minimize access times by using only a fraction of the harddisk's capacity and reducing movement paths for the heads. Transfer speeds will increase as well since outer tracks of a platter have a longer track length at constant rpms.

This is well known for years now and taken into account by some defraggers (moving frequently used files to the beginning) and partitioning strategies (first partition for performance, second partition for data storage).

The new idea here is to actually apply this concept radically to achieve similar performance patterns as SSDs do, for high performance / server setups.

The article was published in 5/2009, I wonder whether the idea is widely accepted and applied nowadays.

For home use I don't really see the point in wasting 3/4th of the harddisk capacity. One can always use rest of the harddisk as infrequently used data storage without affecting the performance of the high-performance partition much (assuming partitioning yields the same result as the described method of restricting the available tracks on firmware level).

welo

[welo]

@filingaccount

I agree. Never really looked at the package offers since the price usually is not very competitive if you only require a bare enclosure without any fancy (or not) 'hot backup' button or packaged software.

Just to clarify, my 'bad' (well, maybe sub-optimal) experience was with COM7, not with DCOM. Will go with SYNNEX or DCOM then.

@Tywais

thanks for the link

welo

[motoyen]

Where do you guys buy your drives from? I went to Pantip but none of the stores I looked at looked overly trustworthy. Is there a large electronic retailer like Best Buy or something in Bangkok?

[welo]

Many companies have multiple shops in Panthip, hence seem small when they are actually not. I don't know which ones are around for how long but I remember J.I.B., Hardware House, IT Future (or similar), ... Many stores publish price lists which makes me more comfortable as I don't have to worry about being ripped of.

Can't comment on customer service, handling of warranty issues and such.

If you need the feeling of a large sales area go to the top floor - IT City. I found some of the sales personal to be well trained and some even speak good enough English. I personally don't like the second larger store on the 2nd floor (Data IT).

welo

Edited March 10, 2010 by welo