SAMSUNG SPINPOINT F1 1TB

Introduction

Samsung is a gargantuan corporation which is more known for its electronics than its computing products.  However, they have produced very fast and innovative HDDs in recent past.  Their 160GB 2.5" 5400 RPM PATA HDD was one particularly exceptional drive, exceeding even 7200 RPM units.  Now, Samsung launches their racy-sounding Spinpoint F1 1TB drives, combining 7200 RPM spindle speed, 32MB of cache, higher areal density (334GB per disk), and a massive 1TB capacity.

The testbed used is comprised of the following components:

The operating system is Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition.  Here are Samsung's specs.  Note that this family is comprised of drives ranging from 160GB up to 1TB.  But to get performance benefits of the 32MB cache, you need to purchase either the 750GB or 1TB. 

The Spinpoint F1 is one nice looking drive:

So here we go.  These are the test results of the F1 in single-drive configuration:

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 8MB Zones

HDTach 3.0.1.0, 32MB Zones

HDTach 3.0.1.0, VAR Zones

ATTO Disk Benchmark

OMFG!  These numbers are friggin' AMAZING for a 7200RPM desktop drive!  Wow, this F1 just took the TOP SPOT among 7200RPM desktop drives.  The previous speed leader was the Barracuda ES.2 shown in the article here.  No other HDD has this much capacity with this much speed.  Thanks to its 334GB/disk areal density and 32MB buffer, the F1 1TB drive impressively annihilates the competition!