Should You Be Looking For A Hard Drive Upgrade?

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Drive Comparison Table & Test Systems

Drive Comparison Table

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Manufacturer Samsung Samsung
Model SpinPoint P120 EcoGreen F2
Model Number SP2004C HD103SI
Form Factor 3.5" 3.5"
Capacity 200 GB 1,000 GB
Spindle Speed 7,200 RPM 5,400 RPM
Other Capacities 250 GB 250, 320, 500, 640, 750, 1,500 GB
Platters 2 2
Cache 8 MB 32 MB
NCQ Yes Yes
Interface SATA/300 SATA/300
Operating Temperature 0-60°C 0-60°C
Specified Idle Power 7.5 W 4.4 W
Measure Idle Power 5.8 W 3.8 W
Operating Shock (2 ms, read) 63 g 70 g
Warranty 3 Years 3 Years

Low-Level Performance Test System

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System Hardware
Hardware Details
CPU Intel Core i7-920 (45nm, 2.66 GHz, 8MB L2 Cache)
Motherboard (Socket 1366) Supermicro X8SAX Revision: 1.1 Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R BIOS: 1.0B
RAM 2 GB DDR3-1333 Corsair CM3X1024-1333C9DHX
HDD Seagate NL35 400 GB ST3400832NS 7,200 RPM, SATA/150, 8 MB Cache
Power Supply OCZ EliteXstream 800W OCZ800EXS-EU
Benchmarks
Performance Measurements h2benchw 3.13PCMark Vantage 1.0
I/O Performance IOMeter 2006.07.27Fileserver-BenchmarkWebserver-BenchmarkWorkstation-BenchmarkDatabase-BenchmarkStreaming ReadsStreaming Writes
System Software and Drivers
Driver Details
Operating System Windows Vista Ultimate SP1
Intel Chipset Chipset Installation Utility 9.1.0.1007
AMD Graphics Radeon 8.12
Intel Matrix Storage 8.7.0.1007

System-Level Test Platform

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System Hardware II
Hardware Details
CPU Intel Pentium 4 660 (90nm, 3.6 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache)
MotherBoard (Socket 1366) Asus P5GDC-V Deluxe Revision: 1.03 Chipset: Intel 915G + ICH6 BIOS: 1011
RAM 2 x 512 MB DDR2-533 Corsair CM2X512-8500
HDD Samsung SpinPoint P120 SP2004C 200 GB 7,200 RPM, SATA/300, 8 MB Cache
Row 5 - Cell 0 Samsung EcoGreen F2 HS103SI 1,000 GB 5,400 RPM, SATA/300, 32 MB Cache
Power Supply OCZ EliteXstream 800WOCZ800EXS-EU
Benchmarks
Performance Measurements BootTimerSysmark Preview 2007 1.05
System Software and Drivers
Driver Details
Operating System Windows XP SP2
Intel Chipset Chipset Installation Utility 9.0.0.1008
Intel GMA 900 14.25.50.4764