Is it me or have HDD prices been spiralling downwards over the last 3 months?
I remember looking into the 1Tb Samsung (HD103UJ) which was pretty much around the 190-200 mark at the begining of the year, and now Teks have it up for 112 quid!?!
Wont be long before theyre sub 100 inc VAT.
yeah this is true, it is the same across everything, DDR2 memory is a good example, 4gb 6400 kit under £50 wasnt that long ago when that would cost you over £200
Quote from: Kris - Tekheadsyeah this is true, it is the same across everything, DDR2 memory is a good example, 4gb 6400 kit under £50 wasnt that long ago when that would cost you over £200
Whats the warranty like on the Samsungs Kris?
3 years manufacturer warranty i believe
Memory is set to shoot back up soon though so get them while they are cheap
looks like that samsung spinpoint has hit 100 notes on ebuyer over night.
Matt
Quote from: bytejunkielooks like that samsung spinpoint has hit 100 notes on ebuyer over night.
Matt
Bloody hell is the sky falling or something? Doesnt appear to be dropping that fast for other brands... not sure why the Samsungs are dropping this fast, theyve got the best spec and have had great reviews.
Most 1Tb drives are 4 platter while these are 3x333Gb!
Think Ill jump on 2-3 of these when I get paid at the end of the month :)
wouldnt 4 platters be better? more heads to read so quicker delivery of data and can write more at the same time.
or is there a massive flaw in my understanding of disks.
Matt
You could be right, but with higher density platters and the same head speed youd read more data per platter per second. Also less platters = less weight = less power use and faster platter acceleration, so seek times may also be smaller (this is all guesswork).
Quote from: ShakeyYou could be right, but with higher density platters and the same head speed youd read more data per platter per second. Also less platters = less weight = less power use and faster platter acceleration, so seek times may also be smaller (this is all guesswork).
Higher density = lower tolerances = higher likelyhood of failure.
Id go for 4 platters ahead of 3.
Quote from: bytejunkiewouldnt 4 platters be better? more heads to read so quicker delivery of data and can write more at the same time.
or is there a massive flaw in my understanding of disks.
Matt
IIRC only one head reads or writes at a time so no. The higher density gives a higher read speed at a given rpm.
More mechanical complexity equals higher likely failure rate. Higher density doesnt mean a higher failure rate at all. The tolerances in the disk are higher, but that doesnt change anything else.
So should i buy my 1T samsung drive now at these prices or should i wait the 2 months i had planned?
HDD will only get cheaper right? or is my thinking flawed?
Unless something drastic happens then they will always be cheaper in the future. If you have enough space now then it might be worth waiting.
Hard drive & RAM prices are sooo cheap these days, at most places for a 500GB hard drive isnt it something like around £50 now? Ram has been stupidly cheap for the past couple of years now.
Liam
My 1T drive arrives tomorrow :) (£99 and free delivery from ebuyer).
Quote from: SeriousQuote from: bytejunkiewouldnt 4 platters be better? more heads to read so quicker delivery of data and can write more at the same time.
or is there a massive flaw in my understanding of disks.
Matt
IIRC only one head reads or writes at a time so no. The higher density gives a higher read speed at a given rpm.
More mechanical complexity equals higher likely failure rate. Higher density doesnt mean a higher failure rate at all. The tolerances in the disk are higher, but that doesnt change anything else.
I call BS.
Higher density = more likely to fail due to the nature of how bits are stored on a hard drive.
More bits per area = higher likelyhood of cross talk, or corrupt data.
erm... don;t all heads read and wright at the same time ?
they must do because the bits are spread across the platers, so bit 1 to platter 1 and bit 2 to platter 2..... if you could only do one at a time then youd only be able to write 1bit per revolution of the disk....
also.... bah, all disks are pretty reliable these days so Im going to say theres f all between them tbh ;)
PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording iirc) is one reason for the higher densities/platter. Im not using it for critical data, so if it does fail I shout at the manufacturer and get a free repair/replacement. For non-critical uses its well worth the price/risk.
Quote from: M3ta7h3adQuote from: SeriousQuote from: bytejunkiewouldnt 4 platters be better? more heads to read so quicker delivery of data and can write more at the same time.
or is there a massive flaw in my understanding of disks.
Matt
IIRC only one head reads or writes at a time so no. The higher density gives a higher read speed at a given rpm.
More mechanical complexity equals higher likely failure rate. Higher density doesnt mean a higher failure rate at all. The tolerances in the disk are higher, but that doesnt change anything else.
I call BS.
Higher density = more likely to fail due to the nature of how bits are stored on a hard drive.
More bits per area = higher likelyhood of cross talk, or corrupt data.
Strange how density has gone up massively yet reliability has improved no end.
Quote from: knightyerm... don;t all heads read and wright at the same time ?
they must do because the bits are spread across the platers, so bit 1 to platter 1 and bit 2 to platter 2..... if you could only do one at a time then youd only be able to write 1bit per revolution of the disk....
also.... bah, all disks are pretty reliable these days so Im going to say theres f all between them tbh ;)
The data goes right around the platter in a ring, the whole ring is read sequentially if needed. Unfortunately the data isnt spread across the platters (like the disks of a raid array) so there would be no point in parallel reading or writing.
As comprehensive as you can get on the topic of drive performance and reliability...
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/index.html
Main link to top level for this link:
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/index.html
Quote from: SeriousQuote from: M3ta7h3adQuote from: SeriousQuote from: bytejunkiewouldnt 4 platters be better? more heads to read so quicker delivery of data and can write more at the same time.
or is there a massive flaw in my understanding of disks.
Matt
IIRC only one head reads or writes at a time so no. The higher density gives a higher read speed at a given rpm.
More mechanical complexity equals higher likely failure rate. Higher density doesnt mean a higher failure rate at all. The tolerances in the disk are higher, but that doesnt change anything else.
I call BS.
Higher density = more likely to fail due to the nature of how bits are stored on a hard drive.
More bits per area = higher likelyhood of cross talk, or corrupt data.
Strange how density has gone up massively yet reliability has improved no end.
Quote from: knightyerm... don;t all heads read and wright at the same time ?
they must do because the bits are spread across the platers, so bit 1 to platter 1 and bit 2 to platter 2..... if you could only do one at a time then youd only be able to write 1bit per revolution of the disk....
also.... bah, all disks are pretty reliable these days so Im going to say theres f all between them tbh ;)
The data goes right around the platter in a ring, the whole ring is read sequentially if needed. Unfortunately the data isnt spread across the platters (like the disks of a raid array) so there would be no point in parallel reading or writing.
No serious... its the error correction thats improved with regards to data storage (alongside other tech like shakey mentions the hitachi perpendicular method of writing data) . Most data read from your hard drive nowerdays has corrupt aspects to it, rather than concentrate on writing it perfectly, they concentrate on bettering the error correction algorithms used.
Run spinrite on a modern drive, watch the ECC Corrected value from the smart readout. Youll be surprised.
Let me know how these 1Tb drives go :) As I need a new one ASAP! :)
QuoteStrange how density has gone up massively yet reliability has improved no end.
Id be inclined to disagree with this, albeit from my own experience and not working in the industry or anything like that.
"Back in the day" it seems hard drives barely ever used to fail, to my memory they just used to soldier on with no bad sectors and fire them up five, ten years later and they would work fine. I must have used hundreds of abused old office surplus hard drives growing up on various machines and tinkering projects and never ever had a hard drive fail once. More recently Ive had two go in as many years and you seem to hear about people RMAing hard drives quite a bit, when I was younger it was pretty unhead of.
Of course I am talking from my own limited experience but it seems logical to me that as they cram more and more data onto the drives, increase the spin speeds and just generally increase complexity of course drives are going to fail more often.