-- Samsung SP1614N 160 Gig 8MB Cache
-- 01.02.2004
-- Price: $130.00
-- By: brutal
-- Page: 1 2 3 4 5
Samsung was nice enough to provide us with one of their new SpinPoint Hard Drives. The particular drive that they provided us with is Model # SP1614N 8MB Cache, 160 Gig's of ATA-133 goodness.
Since I like to see how drives compare against each other and against benchmarks, this review will be composed of 3 hard drives, the Samsung 160GB, a Western Digital 120 GB SE 8MB Cache, and one of my personal favorites, a Western Digital 20 GB ATA-66. The benchmarks that we will be using to evaluate the drives are Ziff-Davis WinBench99, Simpli Software's HD Tach, and SiSoft Sandra. Now that you know the players, let's introduce the star, the Samsung SP1614N.
From Samsung's website:
Features:
80GB Formatted Capacity Per Disk
Ultra ATA-133 Compatible
Fluid Dynamic Bearing Spindle Motor Technology
High Speed Dual Digital Signal Processor (DSP) Based Architecture
NoiseGuard™
SilentSeek™
Specifications:
Interface ATA-7
Bytes per Sector 512
Buffer Size 8 Mbytes
Read Seek Time(typical)
Track to Track 0.8 ms
Average 8.9 ms
Full Stroke 18.0 ms
Average Latency 4.17 ms
Rotational Speed 7,200 rpm
Media to/from Buffer (max.) 741 Mbits/s
Buffer to/from Host(max.) 133Mbytes/s
Drive Ready Time(typical) 7 sec
<1GB=1,000,000,000 Bytes>
For complete Hard Drive specifications, please click here.
As mentioned above, the other Hard Drives included in this review as points of comparison are the Western Digital Caviar 20 Gig 7200 RPM Drive. The WD 20 Gig drive is aging but still has a lot of productive life yet, here are some of it's specifications, please see the above link for full details.
General Specs:
Rotational Speed 7,200 RPM (nominal)
Buffer Size 2 MB
Average Latency 4.20 ms (nominal)
Contact Start/Stop Cycles 40,000 minimum
Read Seek Time (Average) 8.9 ms
Write Seek Time (Average) 10.9 ms (average)
Track-To-Track Seek Time 2.0 ms (average)
Full Stroke Seek 21.0 ms (average)
And the Western Digital Caviar Second Edition 120 Gig 7200 RPM Drive. This hard drive is Western Digital's flag ship and possibly one of the most talked about hard drives in the last year, here are it's specs:
General Specs:
Rotational Speed 7,200 RPM (nominal)
Buffer Size 8 MB
Average Latency 4.20 ms (nominal)
Contact Start/Stop Cycles 50,000 minimum
Read Seek Time (Average) 8.9 ms
Write Seek Time (Average) 10.9 ms (average)
Track-To-Track Seek Time 2.0 ms (average)
Full Stroke Seek 21.0 ms (average)
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