Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB - are they reliable?

[Deadalus]

Hi,

For a new build I am trying to decide on whether to buy a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB for a storage drive. I have heard a few reports that they can be unreliable.

As a possible alternative, I was looking at the Western Digital Black or Green series. The main drive will be a 300GB Velociraptor, so performance is not essential. Noise is important to me and I hear the WD Black series can be quite loud.

What would you recommend?

Thanks,
D.

[staffsMike]

Not sure about the Black series being loud but generally the Blue series (AAKS) WD are very quiet especially when mounted with noise in mind (suspended etc..).

The green series are pretty much as quiet as they come and good little power savers. Slower than you average drive these days but a perfect backup/media solution.

I don't have too much of a problem recommending Spinpoints as they are highly regarded but I'd never buy one myself. I always buy WD and haven't been bitten to this day

[Sputnik]

but I'd never buy one myself.

Can I ask why ?

[matty-hodgson]

Can I ask why ?

cos he trusts WD and the prices are always pretty much the same.
so why change brand when you know the WDs work just fine?

[GoNz0]

i got 4 1tb f1's and there still working

[magneticman]

been great for me so far reliability-wise, very fast too..

[staffsMike]

As Matty says, I've always had them and they never seem to fail on me (and rarely on others it seems).

I've had maxtor, seagate, toshiba and fujitsu fail on me. Hitachi actually serve me pretty well and I'm yet to have a samsung but won't buy one by choice. (All these others were forced upon me lol).

I have lost count of the current WD's I have in my machines and the builds I have done over the last couple of years but they are all faultless.

[matty-hodgson]

i got 4 1TB f1's and there still working

i've got a F1 1TB and 2* the 320GB ones and they're all quiet, cool and haven't had any trouble with them.

lovely 3 year warranty with them too

[magneticman]

i got 4 1gb f1's and there still working

don't tell me you have 4gb raid0 array action going on!!

[GoNz0]

don't tell me you have 4gb raid0 array action going on!!

lol no m8, typo corrected, got 1 in the pc for docs and downloads and 3 in the thecus

[Sputnik]

I've not long bought a 1TB F1. I'm impressed with its speed and it is quiet. I've had a Samsung spinpoint in my laptop for years without any problems.

[NightshadowUK]

Mine gets thoroughly abused and it's still amazing, the lil champ.

EDIT: Should probably mention the 250GB SpinPoint I've run for just over three years too, still going strong.

[rufeo]

had one mainly for storage since may now. regularly write to it and i'm really impressed with the speed and noise, or lack of. plus its one of the cheapest if not the cheapest 1tb drive on the market! no brainer for me tbh

[circuitmonkey]

I build machines with particularly demanding specs. They take a whole lot of abuse being operated out the back of a trailer which is transported from site to site on a nearly bi-weekly manor. Often they are even shipped across the pond by plane.
I use to solely purchase WD drives, but with some drives DOA and some failing after a couple jobs I was forced to look else where. I'm now using the spinpoint F1 1TB drives in a raid 1 array and all is still going well (knock on wood)
So from my experience I wouldn't hesitate recommending them

[Deadalus]

Thanks for all the replies!

I'll definitely give the Spinpoints a try then. I'm going to use 2x 1TB in RAID-1

[Oobie-]

as a side note: why not consider a 1.5tb seagate drive?