Samsung SpitPoint 500GB

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,497
Location
USA
Samsung HD501LJ 500GB SATA drives are inexpensive and I could use another 2TB of drives for storage only. Are these drives any good or is there some reason not to get them, such as poor reliability, high heat, or high noise? I want to order some drives ASAP. Thanks.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
22,303
Location
I am omnipresent
I'm pretty happy with the 400GB models that I have. They are not as loud or hot as my bigger Hitachi drives.
 

RWIndiana

Learning Storage Performance
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
335
Location
Nirvana
Why is it that Samsung drives seem significantly cheaper than other brands? When I'm looking for drives on Newegg I noticed that Samsungs are rarely on the front "featured" page, but when I look for a specific manufacturer (Samsung), every one of them beats the prices of the featured drives. Why is this? I hope there's not something I'm missing.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
22,303
Location
I am omnipresent
Samsung drives aren't "bleeding edge" units. I suspect that they cost Samsung less to manufacture because Samsung isn't competing in the state of the art space that Hitachi and Seagate typically occupy.
 

RWIndiana

Learning Storage Performance
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
335
Location
Nirvana
Could that be related to whatever reason most people here consider them more reliable?
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
22,303
Location
I am omnipresent
I think there's a strong correlation, myself.
I've heard rumblings that the bigger and newer Samsungs aren't as wonderful as the old ones, but my experience remains excellent overall; I might see a Samsung fail once in every six months. Considering the number I have deployed in the last four or five years (call it 200 drives a year? 250? Something like that. I could look it up if anyone wanted to know), I remain happy with them.
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,931
Location
USA
Between you, Tannin, (and buck?), I think there's probably some good historical data to see how samsung's reliability is in the field. I had a discussion with a friend (also a member here) and I questioned where samsung drives are made.

The reason for my question was to know if the models Tannin uses comes from a different plant than the ones you and I use? I've deployed only a small handful of various samsung drives (around 5 ranging between 120-160GB), so my data is useless at this point. In any case, all 5 are still working as far as I know.
 

Clocker

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 14, 2002
Messages
3,554
Location
USA
Is Spitpoint a new line of low end drives for Samsung? :)
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
22,303
Location
I am omnipresent
It's better than my words for S*ny and Western Digital product lines.

Also, I think time might have some historical data worthy of examination. Don't forget time.
 

sechs

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
4,709
Location
Left Coast
The problem that I see with Samsung drives is what happens when you do get a failed drive.
 

Explorer

Learning Storage Performance
Joined
Jun 26, 2002
Messages
236
Location
Hinterlands
RWIndiana said:
When I'm looking for drives on Newegg I noticed that Samsungs are rarely on the front "featured" page...


Samsung storage division seems to have a rather pathetic marketing department behind it when it comes to selling to the retail space. WesternDigi and Seagate/Quaxtor are on the opposite end of that spectrum.

Samsung concentrates on supplying hard drives to big-box vendors. HP/Compaq apparently consumes trainloads of Samsung SATA drives each day manufacturing desktop PCs.



 
Top