Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB: Cool, Quiet, and Quick
by Gary Key on July 9, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Drive Specifications
When compared directly to two of its competitors within the 500GB category, we find the Samsung HD501LJ has nearly identical specs as the Hitachi and Seagate drives. The only major differences is a read seek time advantage and lower power consumption at idle for the Hitachi drive and an additional two years of warranty coverage for the Seagate drive.
Samsung has 17 variations of the T166 product series released at this time with a choice of PATA or SATA interfaces and 8MB or 16MB cache schemes. Capacities for the T166 series range from 80GB to 500GB. Our review unit is at the top of Samsung's model lineup with a 500GB capacity and SATA 3Gbps interface. This capacity is made possible by three 167GB platters spinning at 7200rpm with a 16MB cache. The current street price for this unit is around $109 making it a bargain in the 500GB market. The Hitachi and Seagate drives sell for $139 and $119 respectively.
Feature Set
The external casing design of the SpinPoint T166 series is based on the industry standard 3.5" form factor platform with pertinent part number and warranty information embossed on a white sticker on the top of the casing. Samsung quotes a 600,000 hour Mean Time Between Failure rate that is significantly less than other drives in this category, and near-line enterprise SATA drives that hover around a 1 million to 1.2 million hour MTBF rating.
Of course, MTBF ratings are meaningless if your drive fails within a few hours of operation or a few days outside the warranty period, as is known to happen on occasion. We normally pay very little attention to MTBF ratings and instead focus on the manufacturer's stated lifetime expectancy for the drive and warranty coverage - the longer the better. Samsung lists the life expectancy of this drive under normal operating conditions to be around five years and provides a three year warranty.
The SpinPoint T166 SATA family ships with Serial ATA data and power connectors only. There is no support for the 4-pin Molex power connector designed for use with older ATX power supplies. To the left of the data and power connectors is an eight pin jumper block. This jumper block will determine whether the drive operates in Master, Slave, or Select Cable mode if you are using a PATA model; for SATA models this jumper block has no effect.
The PCB is openly visible on the bottom of the drive as in previous series and contains a Marvell controller chipset and Samsung's own memory module. In the past we have seen Samsung utilize ESMT (Elite Semiconductor Memory Technology) memory which was always surprising given the size of Samsung's memory business.
| Drive Specifications | |||
| Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB HD501LJ |
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 500GB HDT725050VLA360 |
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB ST3500630AS |
|
| Manufacturer's Stated Capacity | 500GB | 500GB | 500GB |
| Operating System Stated Capacity | 465.8 GB | 465.8 GB | 465.8 GB |
| Interface | SATA 3Gb/s | SATA 3Gb/s | SATA 3Gb/s |
| Rotational Speed | 7,200 RPM | 7,200 RPM | 7,200 RPM |
| Cache Size | 16 MB | 16 MB | 16 MB |
| Average Latency | 4.17 ms (nominal) | 4.17 ms (nominal) | 4.16 ms (nominal) |
| Read Seek Time | 8.9 ms | 8.5 ms | 11 ms |
| Number of Heads | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Number of Platters | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Power Draw Idle / Load |
7.1W / 11.3W | 6.9W / 12.5W | 8.6W / 12.6W |
| Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing |
| Warranty | 3 Year - Retail or OEM | 3 Year - Retail or OEM | 5 Year - Retail or OEM |
When compared directly to two of its competitors within the 500GB category, we find the Samsung HD501LJ has nearly identical specs as the Hitachi and Seagate drives. The only major differences is a read seek time advantage and lower power consumption at idle for the Hitachi drive and an additional two years of warranty coverage for the Seagate drive.
Samsung has 17 variations of the T166 product series released at this time with a choice of PATA or SATA interfaces and 8MB or 16MB cache schemes. Capacities for the T166 series range from 80GB to 500GB. Our review unit is at the top of Samsung's model lineup with a 500GB capacity and SATA 3Gbps interface. This capacity is made possible by three 167GB platters spinning at 7200rpm with a 16MB cache. The current street price for this unit is around $109 making it a bargain in the 500GB market. The Hitachi and Seagate drives sell for $139 and $119 respectively.
Feature Set
The external casing design of the SpinPoint T166 series is based on the industry standard 3.5" form factor platform with pertinent part number and warranty information embossed on a white sticker on the top of the casing. Samsung quotes a 600,000 hour Mean Time Between Failure rate that is significantly less than other drives in this category, and near-line enterprise SATA drives that hover around a 1 million to 1.2 million hour MTBF rating.
Of course, MTBF ratings are meaningless if your drive fails within a few hours of operation or a few days outside the warranty period, as is known to happen on occasion. We normally pay very little attention to MTBF ratings and instead focus on the manufacturer's stated lifetime expectancy for the drive and warranty coverage - the longer the better. Samsung lists the life expectancy of this drive under normal operating conditions to be around five years and provides a three year warranty.
The SpinPoint T166 SATA family ships with Serial ATA data and power connectors only. There is no support for the 4-pin Molex power connector designed for use with older ATX power supplies. To the left of the data and power connectors is an eight pin jumper block. This jumper block will determine whether the drive operates in Master, Slave, or Select Cable mode if you are using a PATA model; for SATA models this jumper block has no effect.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The PCB is openly visible on the bottom of the drive as in previous series and contains a Marvell controller chipset and Samsung's own memory module. In the past we have seen Samsung utilize ESMT (Elite Semiconductor Memory Technology) memory which was always surprising given the size of Samsung's memory business.
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Gary Key - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
It did in this case, we actually put some thought into it this time. LOL....
JKing76 - Monday, July 9, 2007 - link
Hey Gary -- mATX roundup?Gary Key - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
This Friday you will have part one up, finally, and then it will be followed by four or five sections over the next four weeks. We will cover everything from cases to keyboards, HD-DVD or Blu-ray, 8600GT or 2600XT, etc, etc. It turns out not just to be about motherboards this time, but the entire system. ;)TA152H - Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - link
Gary,Have you considered reviewing any of the old IBM type keyboards? They don't make them anymore, or so most people believe, so they sell for a ton of money on eBay. But, there is a place that says they sell the exact type of keyboard, with the real feedback, and click. I haven't tried one, because I don't use a regular keyboard (they don't make the natural style), but since most people still do, you might want to contact these folks and see what they have. That type of feel is so much better, and I'd buy one instead of this Microsoft crap except for the layout. It's hard to go back to a regular keyboard after you get used to a natural one :( .
Here is the link if you are interested - http://www.pckeyboard.com">http://www.pckeyboard.com .
I'm guessing they'd be really interested in you reviewing their products, and for people that use normal keyboards, if they are what they say they are, it would be a very useful review. I surely miss those clicky keyboards, I think a lot of people do.
TA152H - Monday, July 9, 2007 - link
Gary,I have a question for you after reading how much you like this drive. Would you actually use one? I have had nothing but trouble with Samsung drives, and from your opening paragraph you have too. They apparently were junk, and their very low ratings for how long they expect the drive to last don't exactly instill confidence. So, you've got a really high opinion on a drive that could be real junk, since I think most people would favor reliability over just about anything else. Do you know more than you said in this article about reliability? Have you guys been having more success lately with Samsung drives? Samsung normally makes really good products, despite their horrible hard disks of the past, so I'm wondering if I should give them another shot. Now that Seagate bought "Crashtor", their quality is liable to go down for a while.
One thing that's in their favor is the low heat. Low heat tends to make things more reliable. But then, their own ratings aren't very good. Seagate's don't last only five years. I don't know how long they last, they always outlive their useful lives even if they are used all the time.
yehuda - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
Maybe it just me, but I wasn't overly impressed with the Samsung P120 that I bought last year. Back then I was in the market for a quiet drive, and the choice toward Samsung came naturally to me with all the hype that surrounded it. I recall that everywhere I turned I'd hear Samsung drives are the quietest.Unfortunately, the one I got (SP2014N with a nidec motor) fell behind my expectations. It had a louder and less pleasant idle noise than the Hitachi 7K80 drive it was meant to replace and also vibrated a lot and had an annoying high-pitched whine. As a point of reference, my ongoing experience with Western Digital WD1600AAJS has been far more positive.
TA152H - Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - link
One of the drives I bought had a terrible whining too. I just threw the thing out. I couldn't stand it and my cat threatened to leave me if I didn't address it. My drives were 5400 RPM, so I didn't have the vibration problems, but that whining was enough to make me scream. And I almost lost my cat over it.goinginstyle - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
I have two P120s, one is extremely quiet, more so than the WD1600AAJS, the other likes to whistle at times for lack of better words. I picked up one of these T166 500GB drives and have been impressed with it except for the vibration issue that was noted, four rubber grommets later and that was solved. Glad to see a Samsung review finally by the way. :)Gary Key - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
We bought two of these drives (we always buy at least one review sample to compare to the drives provided by the suppliers, which in this case Samsung did not) for the review about three months back. Since that time we have had both drives running practically 24/7 in a variety of cases, most with minimal cooling, without issue. This testing is for our m-ATX roundup as this drive will be our recommendation in a low cost HTPC setup. After the first month without any issues, I personally bought a couple of the drives to use in personal systems, once again no issues to date and this includes my work machine.
As much as we like the drive, we still cross our fingers and say a couple of prayers when checking on the test systems. The main reason, I had some horrible experiences in the past with Samsung, to the point that it was very difficult to say yes when asked to review their drives as I just expected something to go wrong with them if I ended up saying something positive. ;) So far, they have proved me wrong and from reports from other websites, and people like Eugene at Storage Review, this drive series is a winner to date. This does not mean you might not get a bad drive, it happens, but it appears the DeathStar type failures Samsung has had in the past is gone now. I am still a little apprehensive but so far so good, in fact, we had a couple of Seagates and WD drives fail here lately so nobody is immune.
TA152H - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
Thanks for your response.I had similar problems with them, but I was stubborn and kept buying more because I liked Samsung as a company. Also, they made 5400 RPM drives, which is what I was after since I prefered the low power use and less heat to the extra performance. At the time, they were about the only game in town at those sizes, and I had a strong preference for the 5400 RPM. So, I kept trying different models, and they all sucked. Now I just buy the notebook drives and use a small adapter for it. They are expensive though for the capacity, but it does work well.
I'm going to try them again at some point too, because I think it's a good company overall and they will get things right. Hopefully they already have.