Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB Review

i think you have missed the point of these drives entirely. they arent for running crysis from, or as an os partition. they are purpose designed to be low power, quiet, mass storage drives. and as such they perform admirably.

exactly and there fore performance should also include the power usage as part of that

however the only reference i can find to power usage is here

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1442303&highlight=power

Originally Posted by iggy2k
i think you have missed the point of these drives entirely. they arent for running crysis from, or as an os partition. they are purpose designed to be low power, quiet, mass storage drives. and as such they perform admirably.

A good drive should do it all Iggy - why should we have to settle for a turd slow drive just because it's quiet and cheap? Should we let a product off the hook for performing poorly just because it's "targetted" differently. It doesn't say anywhere on Samsung's website "this drive not for O/S use." does it?

In fact, in the closing paragraph, I specifically state this drive is perfect for a NAS box or home server, where capacity, price, low noise and low heat are all much more important factors. In fact I liked this drive's attributes in these categories so much, My home NAS now uses two of them.

But sadly we're not called "NAS-tech.net" or "Bulk-Media-Storage PC." It's our job to test and see where these drives perform in comparison to each other. If this drive had managed to be both very quiet and very fast, as the original Samsung Spinpoint F1 was, it would have scored higher. As it's slow, but very good value and well behaved thermally and acoutically, it still scored well, but doesn't deserve and all-round recommendation.

Excellent review, and clear, consise analysis of it's performance and place within the market.

Originally Posted by yakyb
exactly and there fore performance should also include the power usage as part of that

however the only reference i can find to power usage is here

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1442303&highlight=power

We've measured power usage before with HDDs and the difference between a 7,200 and 5,400RPM drive is generally around 3watts at best. Seriously, it's minimal, and actually within the margin of error of our power consumption measuring gear. Just because the stick "EcoGreen" on the box doesn't make it best friends with the environment, its a marketing spin to counteract the poor performance.

Just for reference, the power saving works out at roughly (if 1KW/h = 15p) 1p/day based on continuous usage with the drive at full speed. If you;re using this drive as we, and many of you would suggest as a bulk storage, this saving drops substantially as for the most part it's sat there as bulk storage.

any chance of reviewing the samsung f3 Baz>?

Originally Posted by j4ck3l
any chance of reviewing the samsung f3 Baz>?

Give the man a chance! It's in the labs and on the to do list :P

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=175331

Looking good so far...

Andy

Aria has a few of these F2's in at just £63.

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/newsletter?productId=37094

Looking forward to the F3 review.
In the comments for Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black Review you said you were reviewing the F3 1.5TB some time this week. Was that a typo? Or is it just the 1TB drive cos I'd love to get a 1.5TB but haven't seen any release info on that size yet.

F2 1.5TB, F3 1TB afaik.

This was a good review. However, it is rather late and is not the one we are all wanting now so it's a bit of a disappoinment. We want the details on the F3 and this could have been included along with that. I know the review is on its way, it just feels like this site is ticking boxes and tagging along where other sites have already been. By the time the F3 is reviewed here it will be old news.

Sorry for the criticism but it is my opinion of this site.

Originally Posted by Baz
We've measured power usage before with HDDs and the difference between a 7,200 and 5,400RPM drive is generally around 3watts at best. Seriously, it's minimal, and actually within the margin of error of our power consumption measuring gear.

True, but device taking 6W vs 9W at seek is pretty significant difference. Not with one drive. But put 5 of them in setup where are they intended (data storage), and you get 15W difference. Maybe not enough for you, but considering my file server with 4 pieces of WD10EADS + X2 4850e + M3N78 takes around 45W at idle makes from those marginal 3W x 5 drives = 15W a pretty big difference.

15w even assuming it is constantly saving that (its not) is 15wh or 0.015 kwh that is 0.015 of about 15p per kwh. So with that running 24/7 you would save almost £20 per year, if that is significant then you should probably consider buying one less drive of larger capacity. Also worth noting that 3w of heat could be dissipated by a small heat sink that one would strap to a lm317 type component.

You could probably save the same amount by turning off your file server for an hour a day tbh.

Originally Posted by j4ck3l
any chance of reviewing the samsung f3 Baz>?

Samsung F3 review coming later this week!

Just a little FYI, power consumption means absolutely nothing to the whole "green" movement when it comes to storage drives. If you really want to affect the environment for the better, do some research on the manufacturing companies and see who has the better materials disposal and recycling policies. You will make an infinitely greater difference by purchasing drives from manufacturers that are environmentally responsible than you would trying to find the drive that uses the least about of power because power consumption from drives is so minimal.

Originally Posted by Scootiep
Just a little FYI, power consumption means absolutely nothing to the whole "green" movement when it comes to storage drives. If you really want to affect the environment for the better, do some research on the manufacturing companies and see who has the better materials disposal and recycling policies. You will make an infinitely greater difference by purchasing drives from manufacturers that are environmentally responsible than you would trying to find the drive that uses the least about of power because power consumption from drives is so minimal.

+ rep ;)

F2 Pah.

F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3.

Pull your thumbs out of your bums and review the F3!

Samsung F1 vs F3 benchmarks:-

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=175331

Again, it would be nice to see the power usage on these drives.

Important factor in a "green" disk, no?

w00t! My F3 comes tomorrow. Along with 4gb of PC8500.

That said, the F2 would certainly suit a NAS or HTPC

Do you people even read the earlier posts before you write your own?

Anyways, poor performance, low price >> no buy. In these days with a market overflowing of alternatives they have to do better to impress me.

I will not be buying this drive, it fails.

Originally Posted by Baz
Samsung F3 review coming later this week!

Great - hope that's not Saturday

Seems to be a lot of people looking to buy new drives, lets not create a shortage of F3's

I am sure the F2's have their uses, but not in my box

You say 15w per drive is not significant. You are wrong! Data centers these days are not constrained by floor space, or even by how much heat they can deal with, it's power they are limited by. Even a 1% saving on power consumption is big when you scale it up.

To totally "dis" the entire eco aspect of drives like this is selling everyone short. Yes companies will try and make the most of any "green" claims, but hey that's because they know it's a big deal and it's one of the main thing that matters.

Originally Posted by Jenny_Y8S
You say 15w per drive is not significant. You are wrong! Data centers these days are not constrained by floor space, or even by how much heat they can deal with, it's power they are limited by. Even a 1% saving on power consumption is big when you scale it up.

To totally "dis" the entire eco aspect of drives like this is selling everyone short. Yes companies will try and make the most of any "green" claims, but hey that's because they know it's a big deal and it's one of the main thing that matters.

It's not 15W per drive it's ~3W.

And data centres do not run consumer drives like this either. It's marketed at consumers not companies.

To put it in perspective, 3W is the difference between having an extra case fan or not. It's the difference between manufacturing tolerances of the SAME POWER SUPPLY and is much less than running different PSUs or running 110V versus 230V.