Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB: Cool, Quiet, and Quick
by Gary Key on July 9, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Quick Take
Samsung's SpinPoint T166 delivers excellent performance for the money in our opinion. The overall performance of the drive in the 500GB category remained consistent, and while not always class leading it certainly was not the class dunce. The drive's placement in our actual application tests is always near the top along with very good scores in the iPEAK productivity and general task tests.
While the speed of the drive was at question in our iPEAK game play tests, we really never noticed it during actual game play unless we had just used the Raptor drive as our comparison drive. The true strength of the Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB drive is its incredible showing in the acoustic and thermal tests while having excellent power consumption numbers and competitive performance.
For all intents and purposes, the drive is whisper quiet - maybe not a perfect soft whisper, but quiet enough that we would not hesitate to use this drive or a combination of drives in an HTPC setup. As a matter of fact, you will see this drive featured prominently in an upcoming article centered on HTPC components and it is our drive of choice to compare against the PVR specific DB35.3 series from Seagate and the CinemaStar 7K500 drives from Hitachi.
Our opinion of the SpinPoint T166 is very high right now and unlike previous Samsung offerings we think this latest series delivers a near perfect combination of performance, quiet operation, thermal management, and price. In terms of pure performance, the Hitachi 500GB drive might be slightly faster, but in practical use it is extremely unlikely anyone would notice the difference in performance. Noise levels on the other hand definitely favor the Samsung T166 drives, and we really see no reason to spend $30 more to get the Hitachi drive. If you are looking for a hard drive in this capacity range then the Samsung HD501LJ should be at the top of your list.
Samsung's SpinPoint T166 delivers excellent performance for the money in our opinion. The overall performance of the drive in the 500GB category remained consistent, and while not always class leading it certainly was not the class dunce. The drive's placement in our actual application tests is always near the top along with very good scores in the iPEAK productivity and general task tests.
While the speed of the drive was at question in our iPEAK game play tests, we really never noticed it during actual game play unless we had just used the Raptor drive as our comparison drive. The true strength of the Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB drive is its incredible showing in the acoustic and thermal tests while having excellent power consumption numbers and competitive performance.
For all intents and purposes, the drive is whisper quiet - maybe not a perfect soft whisper, but quiet enough that we would not hesitate to use this drive or a combination of drives in an HTPC setup. As a matter of fact, you will see this drive featured prominently in an upcoming article centered on HTPC components and it is our drive of choice to compare against the PVR specific DB35.3 series from Seagate and the CinemaStar 7K500 drives from Hitachi.
Our opinion of the SpinPoint T166 is very high right now and unlike previous Samsung offerings we think this latest series delivers a near perfect combination of performance, quiet operation, thermal management, and price. In terms of pure performance, the Hitachi 500GB drive might be slightly faster, but in practical use it is extremely unlikely anyone would notice the difference in performance. Noise levels on the other hand definitely favor the Samsung T166 drives, and we really see no reason to spend $30 more to get the Hitachi drive. If you are looking for a hard drive in this capacity range then the Samsung HD501LJ should be at the top of your list.
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Final Hamlet - Thursday, July 12, 2007 - link
Why bother buying the out-dated T166 model if the F1 is entering the market as we're speaking?Just judging after the 1Tera Hitachi it will be more silent, less warm and the 500GB model has only 2 platters instead of 3.
[I don't want to speak badly of Samsung HDs, as I have a T166 and a T133, but why bother buying the old generation?]
TA152H - Monday, July 9, 2007 - link
You've got guts buying a Crashtor, and if it actually a Seagate, count yourself lucky. But, you probably have a Crashtor or some mixture. Seagate has properly relegated it to the low end segment, but they also said when they bought them that Maxtor had better perpendicular recording technology. I don't know what that means exactly, but your hard disk might truly be befouled by Maxtor genetics. Back up early and often. Hmmm, maybe that should have been Crashtor's moto. It's catchy.