2TB Samsung HD203WI Spinpoint F3EG vs 2TB Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green

[PiracyX]

I have been considering getting a couple of 2TB drives for a little while. I already have 4x 1TB Samsung F1's and they are starting to get full.

I was considering the F3 2TB for awhile then this new WD 2TB arrived about a week ago which has 64MB cache. Obviously they both spin at 5400rpm and are about the same speed so which one is better?

I am not too known to WD drives lately but someone said about these new WD drives park themselves and cause stuttering in say movie watching etc. I don't know if this is true so I wanted to clarify on this.

I could also do with a near silent operation drive as my Samsung F1's are all virtually silent which I like.

If anyone has either drive could they let me know how they got on with them

Thanks

[Funkstar]

Not sure about the EARS drives, but I have 4x 1.5TB EADS drives in a RAID-5 array and they are great. Better than the three 1.5TB Samsung F2s that seem to be very tempremental, even with the on board SATA controller.

Keep meaning to get these fully tested and returned if faulty.

[arthurleung]

If you are running the drives in (proper) RAID (5/6), amount of cache should have almost no effect on the speed. Anything from 8-64MB should give the same performance as caching is done by the controller.

Personally I have 8x2TB Hitachi. They're so much cheaper than anything else that not being 5400RPM is not a problem.

[Biscuit]

i have a single F3 2TB and so far im really impressed. Mega fast (especially confidering its only 5400rpm) and its much quieter than my F1 750GB.

I also have 2 x 500GB F3s in my desktop and they are nearly silent. Really liking samsungs drives at the moment

[PiracyX]

I am not really thinking of using a RAID on them, At least not for now.

I think I'm towards the Samsung, I mean I have a 320GB F1 AND 4X 1TB from them and they are silent and pretty fast.

I think I will consider getting one this week.

[Singh400]

I have got the 2TB Samsung in my WHS box. I'm happy as can be - another vote for the Samsung.

[snootyjim]

The F3 drives are excellent, but WD are a good manufacturer all-in-all.

The EARS factor can be a bit of a pain at time - AFAIK if you're using Vista/7 then they're fine, if it's XP or Server 2003 then there's a bit of mucking around to do.

I'd probably pick whatever was cheapest tbh, assuming it's for Win Vista/7

[TooNice]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I do (pick the cheapest per GB). The way I see it, you are going to need backing up anyway. Having said that, I've not RAID-ed my setup yet, so it might well be that some drives are better for that (going by Funkstar).

[Funkstar]

The EARS drives are the ones using WDs advanced format, or whatever it is called. This is generally a good thing, however, it can cause problems with some systems like RAID cards and XP.

[peterb]

More info on the WD EARS advanced format issue here: http://forums.hexus.net/operating-sy...ml#post1887338

[rpsgc]

Sorry to bump this topic but I'm also in the same predicament as the OP.

Samsung HD203WI vs Western Digital WD20EARS

[peterb]

You may want to look at these threads:

http://forums.hexus.net/operating-sy...mat-drive.html

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...r-green-2.html