Samsung Spinpoint M8 HN-M500MBB (500 GB) And HN-M101MBB (1 TB)
Samsung targets the mobile computing and notebook market with its 2.5“ Spinpoint M8 family. You can choose between four different storage sizes: a 1 TB flagship (HN-M101MBB) and 750 GB model feature two 500 GB platters, whereas the 500 and 320 GB models only employ one platter. The manufacturer does not specify its storage density, but mentions AF support and the capacity increase enabled by AF.
Samsung sent us two Spinpoint M8 disks for this round-up, the HN-M500MBB (500 GB, $55 street price) and HN-M101MBB (1 TB, $90 street price).
Apart from the different capacities and platter configurations, all Spinpoint M8 models are identical. They have an 8 MB cache, a SATA 3Gb/s interface, and a 5400 RPM spindle. Compared to the M8’s predecessor, Samsung claims to have increased performance by about seven percent through a combination of AF and a higher-clocked SoC (system on chip) controller.
Performance
The performance of both Samsung notebook hard disks is average. The 500 GB model has a slightly higher sequential data rate than the 1 TB one, achieving a read rate of 84.7 MB/s and a write rate of 84.6 MB/s, which is quite good. It’s not good enough for the top spot, however, as Western Digital’s Scorpio Blue WD10JPVT is faster.
The 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint M8 loses out to its smaller sibling, sporting read speeds up to 79.9 MB/s and writes as fast as 79.7 MB/s, topping Hitachi’s Travelstar 5K750. If your main focus in choosing a 1 TB notebook hard disk is performance, the Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD10JPVT will serve you better.
Compared to 7200 RPM drives, the Samsung disks offer lower power consumption. According to its data sheet, the Spinpoint M8 draws 2.2 W while in use and 0.7 W when it’s idle. Our tests confirm the idle power number, and demonstrate between 1.2 and 2.6 W for a disk in use.
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On the western digital hard disk page the Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT is mentioned as 750 TB please correct it.
Nice article as a whole
On a lighter note I would love to have a 750 TB drive at that price
someday.....
Good to have all the latest data in one place. Wish Dell had put in the 750GB Scorpio Black instead of 750GB Momentus in my XPS15.
One minor point: good to know that i7-920 is now part of Sandybridge. Can you check???
Wonder how well these things survive the drop test. If they can survive a fall that a SSD can sustain then I'll be up for it. Other than that wish higher capacity SSDs become cheaper.
Talk about a bad time for a hard drive comparison...
GoFlex is a Seagate disk product line not Western Digital
Western Digital hard drives sound good in theory for laptops, but they're not. I would never use one unless they fix a fatal flaw.
What flaw? The fact that the hard drive automatically goes to sleep (parks its head) after eight seconds of inactivity, and since this is hardwired into the firmware it completely dismisses what you set in your Power Options in the Windows 7 Control Panel. Why is this bad? Because if the HDD is inactive for more than eight seconds it needs to unpark its head, and that creates a very noticeable lag when launching applications or working with files because the process takes a few seconds to complete, not to mention it puts more stress on the HDD mechanics.
Unless it's simply for a storage drive where you don't care about performance I recommend you go with Seagate, Hitachi, or Samsung for laptop HDDs instead.
Current prices are a bit higher than what is mentioned in the article, actually pretty scary:
Hitachi 750GB $140-160
Samsung 1TB $220
WD 750GB $160
WD 1TB $230
yeah prices are way off
I'd go with the WD Scorpio Black
Current prices are a bit higher than what is mentioned in the article, actually pretty scary:Hitachi 750GB $140-160Samsung 1TB $220WD 750GB $160WD 1TB $230
That's because of the incident at WD's factory
That's because of the incident at WD's factory
I was looking at Newegg and a 500GB Caviar Black that I had bought a year ago for $50-$60 was $150.
Current prices are a bit higher than what is mentioned in the article, actually pretty scary:Hitachi 750GB $140-160Samsung 1TB $220WD 750GB $160WD 1TB $230
Yeah. Hard drive prices would have made for a great halloween article - they'd frighten all system builders and anyone looking for a storage upgrade. And we'll supposedly be seeing them like that for a while yet.
BTW, whats with the high prices on HDDs nowdays? i heard that the prices rised because some floding in some country?
BTW, whats with the high prices on HDDs nowdays? i heard that the prices rised because some floding in some country?
Flooding in Thailand, yep.
From toms (link up above the discussion)
Zoom
Prices for hard drives have jumped by as much as 50 percent within one week, market research firm IHS said. About a quarter of all hard drives are manufactured in Thailand and it appears that all major vendors are affected in some way.
Western Digital previously said that it may see a revenue decline of about 60 percent in the current quarter and told German publication Golem.de that it will be able to produce only 22 to 26 million drives this quarter, instead of the planned 58 million units. A spokesperson said that WD "currently waits for the factories to dry" to be able to restart its manufacturing tools. What makes matters worse are the usually thin profit margins in the HDD industry, which means that manufacturers typically have only five to seven days of material supply.
A Seagate manager told CRN India that the company expects and "acute" shortage of drives and that the manufacturer expects prices to increase. However, there was no information how sharp this increase can be. Both WD and Seagate said that the floods in Thailand have created a problem for the industry that will take several quarters to resolve.
Other sources:
CRN
PC World
On the western digital hard disk page the Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT is mentioned as 750 TB please correct it.Nice article as a whole
750 TB? i did not know that they made such large hard drives...maybe you mean 750GB
Good to have all the latest data in one place. Wish Dell had put in the 750GB Scorpio Black instead of 750GB Momentus in my XPS15. One minor point: good to know that i7-920 is now part of Sandybridge. Can you check???
you can always replace it yourself, lol....it's not that expensive, lol
About the Scorpio Black 750GB drive and it's power consumption. I put one in my friend's Asus 1005HA netbook and it doesn't get very warm and cut the boot time in half versus the stock one platter 160GB 5400RPM drive.
The heat/power consumption isn't an issue.
Western Digital hard drives sound good in theory for laptops, but they're not. I would never use one unless they fix a fatal flaw.What flaw? The fact that the hard drive automatically goes to sleep (parks its head) after eight seconds of inactivity, and since this is hardwired into the firmware it completely dismisses what you set in your Power Options in the Windows 7 Control Panel. Why is this bad? Because if the HDD is inactive for more than eight seconds it needs to unpark its head, and that creates a very noticeable lag when launching applications or working with files because the process takes a few seconds to complete, not to mention it puts more stress on the HDD mechanics.Unless it's simply for a storage drive where you don't care about performance I recommend you go with Seagate, Hitachi, or Samsung for laptop HDDs instead.
Hmm, my WD Scorpio Black 750GB park it's heads about once a minute. I can hear it lock. But I have never experienced any lag from it and so far it hasn't worn out. My load cycle count is a 50,000 so far no problems with 2696 of power on hours.