SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI anyone using?

[The_Tango]

Was wondering about the SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI drives used in a raid 5 or 6 setup.

I would like to use enterprise drives but at 2 to 3 times the cost - can't afford.

 

[Jesse B]

The Spinpoint F4's are quite new, so I can't imagine there'd be many people using them. However, the F3's are quite good drives from what I've heard, and the F4's are supposed to simply improve on those. As far as I know, the only real differences are higher platter density and lower power consumption.

 

[HDClown]

Cisco is using Samsung Spinooint F3's in their NSS boxes, so that says something good about those drives.

Hitachi 7K2000 is also another tried, and 7200rpm consumer grade drive for RAID arrays. This is the primary drive of choice for off-the-shelf or DIY NAS' on various online forums, per my forum browsing.

If you want a 5400rpm drive, the Samsung EcoGreen F3 is the way to go.

As for the Spinpoint F4, the 7200rpm drives only go up to 320g right now, or you can go up to 750G on 5400rpm F4's. The F4EG' are 5400 rpm's and are 1.5 and 2.0TB.

On an unrelated note, Samsung has made their model line much more confusing with the new "4" series. I don't like how they mix 7200rpm and 5400rpm within the model. The "old" way of Spinpoint = 7200 and EcoGreen = 5400 is much nicer. Then they throw out an F4EG (EG = EcoGreen I assume) randomly for the larger drives. Very weird.

 

[BrianBloom]

The Spinpoint F4's are quite new, so I can't imagine there'd be many people using them. However, the F3's are quite good drives from what I've heard, and the F4's are supposed to simply improve on those. As far as I know, the only real differences are higher platter density and lower power consumption.

The other difference, and the reason I decided not to go with them for the NAS I bought this week, is that the F4EGs are Samsung's first 4K sector drives (to the best of my knowledge). The WD 4K drives "broke" quite a few NASes and needed new firmwares to perform right and I decided I didn't want to be the bleeding edge guinea pig to see if the Samsungs had similar issues (or if the WD 4K patches would work). So I played it safe and stuck with some HD103SJs instead. I'll look at upgrading to F4EGs after other people have tested them out and identified any issues...

 

[Jesse B]

The other difference, and the reason I decided not to go with them for the NAS I bought this week, is that the F4EGs are Samsung's first 4K sector drives (to the best of my knowledge).

Ahh, I wasn't aware of this change; I haven't exactly been paying a lot of attention to the new features on these drives Thanks for bringing that to my attention though.